A BLOW AT THE ROOT 



MODERN INFIDELITY AND SCEPTICISM; 



OR, 



HUXLEYISM ANALYZED AND CRITICISED. 



BY 



THOMAS MOEROW, Y.D.M. 

HARTSELL, MORGAN COUNTY, ALA. 




.Mill 



PRINTED BY J. B. LIPPINCOTT & CO., PHILADELPHIA. 

1878. 



Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1877, by 

THOMAS MORROW, V.D.M., 
In the Office of the Librarian of Congress at Washington. 



The Library 

ot Congress 



WASHINGTON 



A BLOW AT THE EOOT 

OF 

MODERN INFIDELITY AND SCEPTICISM. 



The friends of the Bible generally seem to be ignorant of 
the great efforts which are being made against it, and the 
dangers threatening the progress of religion, both in heathen 
and Christian lands. A correspondent of the Free Church 
Record, of Scotland, says that in the Imperial University 
of Japan, where he has been for two years, there are gathered 
under the government patronage some eight hundred students, 
the sons of the rich, the high, and the powerful of Japan. It 
has about twenty-five foreign professors, who instruct them in 
science and literature. In a library of about thirty-five thousand 
volumes there is not a single copy of the Bible, but " Draper's 
Conflict between Science and Religion" is used as a regular 
text-book ; and those who are now ruling Japan, and who are 
intelligent enough to read a page in Mill or Spencer, are fast 
becoming sceptics, and are ready to go to any length in that 
direction. Yes, Mills and Spencers, Darwins and Comtes, 
are going to make more trouble in Japan than the nebulous 
mythology of Sintooism, or the shadowy superstition of 
Buddhism. 

Mr. Carlyle says: The so-called literary and scientific 
classes in England now proudly give themselves to protoplasm, 
origin of species, and the like, to prove that God did not 
make the universe. I have known three generations of the 
Darwins, grandfather, father, and son, atheists all. The 
brother of the naturalist, a quiet man, who lives not far from 
here, told me that among his grandfather's effects he found 

3 



4 



A BLOW AT THE ROOT OF 



a seal engraven witli this legend — "Omnia ex conchis ;" every- 
thing from a clam-shell ! I saw the naturalist not many months 
ago; told him that I had read his " Origin of the Species," 
and other books ; that he by no means satisfied me that men 
were descended from monkeys, but had gone far to persuade 
me that he and his so-called scientific brethren had brought 
the present generation of Englishmen very near to monkeys. 
Ah, it is a terrible thing to see nigh a whole generation of 
men and women professing to be cultured, looking around in 
a purblind fashion and finding no God in the universe. 

Mr. Southall, in his work on the " Recent Origin of 
Man," says: The wave has not fairly reached the masses yet, 
but it will soon be very generally believed that science has 
proved the immense antiquity of man. Nearly all the scien- 
tific men of Europe and of this country have embraced this 
opinion, while probably a decided majority have reached the 
conclusion of Mr. Darwin and Mr. Huxley that we are de- 
scended from apes. These views are not confined to the great 
teachers and expounders of science, but are current in the 
newspaper and magazine literature of the day, and, in fact, 
so dogmatic are the assertions in favor of them, and so great 
the authority of the names by which they are guaranteed, 
that opposition and dissent have been almost entirely silenced, 
and Mr. J. P. Lesley, Secretary of the American Philosophi- 
cal Society, in some lectures delivered in Boston, regards the 
whole question as so completely closed by the " recent dis- 
coveries," that he considers it merely necessary to hick the 
old theology. 

And the Christian Observer says : " An infidel by the name 
of Burleigh, residing at Capron, 111., last Sunday week pub- 
lished a card informing the citizens that, in order to gratify 
an often-expressed curiosity on the part of his townsmen to 
witness some such tragedy as the hanging of Sherry and Con- 
nolly, in Chicago, he would, on the eve of the 23d inst., de- 



MODERN INFIDELITY AND SCEPTICISM. 5 



liver a lecture in Thornton Hall, and at its conclusion gratify 
them by shooting himself through the forehead. The price 
of admission would be one dollar, and the amount realized 
should be used in his funeral expenses, and the remainder be 
invested in the works of Huxley, Tyndall, and Darwin, for a 
town library. At the appointed time the hall was crowded, 
and, after delivering an infidel lecture, he suddenly drew a 
revolver, and, despite the attempts of his friends to prevent 
it, shot himself through the head, killing himself instantly." 

Having, with serious apprehensions, watched the progress of 
these things for more than twenty-five years, being now fully 
satisfied that the impression is being made upon the masses 
of the people, that the authenticity of the Bible is at least 
very doubtful, and having collected many facts on the subject, 
I have condensed them into the size of a small pamphlet to 
be used as an advertiser of a more elaborate and more exten- 
sive work. This pamphlet condenses the suppositions and 
theories of scientific scepticism under the general head of 
Huxley ism, because Prof. Huxley himself embraces nearly 
all of them. And it shows that the arguments of the pro- 
fessor and others in favor of Evolution are utter failures, 
proves that all the suppositions, hypotheses, and theories of 
scientists, biologists, and geologists, in opposition to the Bible, 
have their ultimate and only foundation in the supposed 
chronological records of geological strata, and demonstrates by 
their own statements that the existence of such chronological 
records in geological strata is a Jive-fold impossibility ; and 
that Prof. Huxley himself admits, and repeats with emphasis, 
that there is not the slightest proof of the age of strata. 
These facts defy refutation, and make a fatal Blow at the 
Root of Modern Infidelity and Scepticism ; for, while other 
methods of treating the subject only lop off some of the 
branches, this entirely eradicates scientific scepticism in all 
its forms. 

1* 



6 



A BLOW AT THE ROOT OF 



The opinions and views of such men as Prof. Huxley, the 
great apostle of modern science, and president of the Geo- 
logical Society of Loudon, are worthy of profound considera- 
tion, not merely because they are important in themselves, but 
because they wield a powerful influence for weal or for woe 
upon the masses of the people. 

§.1. In his " Lectures to Working Men" he says, " The 
general result of our investigation might be summed up thus: 
We found that the multiplicity of the forms of animal life, 
great as that may be, may be reduced to a comparatively few 
primitive plans or types of construction ; that a further study 
of the development of these different forms revealed to us 
that they were again reducible, until we at last brought the 
infinite diversity of animal, and even vegetable, life down to 
the primordial form of a single cell." " Orig. Spec,," p. 29. 

§ 2. Again., as to the origin of that single cell, he says, "To 
enable us to say that we know anything of the experimental 
origination of organization and life, the investigator ought to 
be able to take inorganic matter, such as carbonic acid, am- 
monia, water, and salines, in any sort of inorganic combina- 
tion, and be able to build them up into protein matter, and 
then that protein matter ought to begin to live in an organic 
form. That nobody has done as yet, and I suspect it will be 
a long while before any one does do it. But the thing is by 
no means so impossible as it looks ; for the researches of 
modern chemistry have shown us — I won't say the road 
towards it; but, if I may so say, they have shown the finger- 
post pointing to the road that may lead to it." " Orig. Spec," 
p. 69. 

§ 3. And Mr. Southall says, " As for Prof. Huxley's 
protoplasm, and the whole theory of evolution, force, vital 
atoms, etc., precisely the same theory was advocated nearly 
six hundred years before our era by Anaximander, who first 
gave to the original material substance of things the name of 



MODERN INFIDELITY AND SCEPTICISM. 7 



principle (apzrj), and who evolved the animal creation by the 
action of the sunlight on the miry clay. We have very nearly 
the identical article of protoplasm itself in this philosopher. 
The sun's heat, he said, acting on the primal miry clay, pro- 
duced ' filmy bladders or bubbles, and these becoming sur- 
rounded with a prickly rind at length burst open, and, as from 
an egg, animals came forth. At first they were ill formed and 
imperfect, but subsequently they elaborated and developed.' 
Man he represented as 1 developed' from a jish. This reads 
precisely like 1 Half Hours with the Modern Scientists.' Where 
is the difference ? And yet they claim to possess all the pro- 
fundity of this age, and to have made a great advance on 
past ages. 

" But our ' modern scientists' were anticipated not only by 
the Ionic philosopher. About the time of Anaximander, 
Buddhism propounded in India that matter was £ eternal,' and 
possessed ' the property of inherent organization.'' Nor is it in 
the doctrine of evolution alone that our £ modern scientists' 
have been anticipated by the Hindoos. Mr. Mill's philosophy 
of nescience or materialistic idealism is completely described 
in the following account of Vedaism : L That matter has no 
essence independent of mental perception ; that existence and 
perceptibility are convertible terms ; that external appearances 
and sensation are illusory.' This, if we understand them, is 
the precise position of Mill and Huxley, the latter of whom 
avows himself a ' Humist.' " " Rec. Orig. Man," pp. 61, 62. 

§ 4. A few years ago Mr. Darwin wrote a book called the 
" Descent of Man," in which, commencing at an Ascidian, — 
an invertebrate, hermaphrodite, marine creature, permanently 
attached to a support, and consisting of a simple, tough, 
leathery sac, — he endeavored, by the factors of natural selec- 
tion, sexual selection, development, evolution, etc., to trace 
it down through fish, reptiles, dogs, monkeys, etc., to man. 

§ 5. " This theory," says the Evening Bulletin, " is now 



8 



A BLOW AT THE ROOT OF 



endorsed by many eminent scientists, who at first combated it, 
including Sir Charles Lyell, probably the most learned of 
living* geologists, and even by a class of Christian divines like 
Dr. McCosh, who think that certain theories of cosmogony, 
like the nebular hypothesis and the law of evolution, may be 
accepted without doing violence to faith." 

§ 6. " The wave," says Southall, " has not fairly reached 
the masses yet, but it will soon be very generally believed that 
science has proved the immense antiquity of man. Nearly all 
of the scientific men of Europe and of this country have em- 
braced this opinion, while perhaps a decided majority have 
reached the conclusion of Mr. Darwin and Mr. Huxley that 
we are descended from apes. 

§ 7. " Most of these learned gentleman believe in 1 natural 
selection' or < evolution,' and all of them laugh to scorn the 
idea that man is not more than seven or eight thousand years 
old. Most of them cautiously avoid specific figures, but all of 
them use terms which imply a great antiquity for the human 
race. Chevalier Bunsen ventured from his Egyptological 
studies to fix the date of the human period at 20,000 B.C. 
Mr. Jukes, one of the first English geologists, fixes it at one 
hundred thousand years ago. Prof. Fuhlrott, of Germany, who 
writes a work on the famous Neanderthal skull, suggests that 
that piece of paleontology must be some two hundred thousand 
or three hundred thousand years old. Dr. Hunt, formerly 
president of the British Anthropological Society, holds the 
opinion that the proper date is nine million years ago. Prof 
Huxley believes that man 1 existed when a tropical fauna and 
flora flourished in our northern clime,' which was in the car- 
boniferous era, — and that is supposed to have been hundreds 
of millions of years ago." See " Rec. Orig. Man," pp. 45, 46. 

§ 8. And in his recent lecture in Nashville, Tenn., Prof. 



* Now dea l. 



MODERN INFIDELITY AND SCEPTICISM. 9 



Huxley said, " I find that there is a large limestone plain on 
part of which Nashville stands. Then there are your Cum- 
berland highlands, away eastward. Then westward there is 
also a highland, some long distance west, that tips into a gulf, 
and on that gulf there rest other beds, until you come to the 
valley of the Mississippi. Here we have beds which form the 
present foundation upon which the city stands. Upon each 
side you have beds of rock superposed one above the other. 
These [pointing to a diagram on the blackboard] being deposited 
upon these below, must naturally be more recent. There can 
be no doubt that the beds of rock were formed one above 
another in the order of their date, — the oldest at the bottom, 
the newest at the top. 

" We may pursue this course of inquiry further, and we find 
that while all the great plain which forms the foundation of 
the city belongs to some of the oldest rocks on the globe, this 
highland of the Cumberland district belongs to what is 
called the carboniferous formation, both Silurian and Carbonif- 
erous being parts of an extremely ancient period of the world's 
history. 

" I know," said he, " it is thought very generally that men 
of science are in the habit of drawing largely from their 
imagination, but it's really not so. The most sober, careful 
consideration of the facts forces upon you more and more de- 
terminedly the conviction that the theory respecting which we 
have this geological evidence of a period of the past history of 
the world is of a duration which, in comparison with our human 
standard, may be regarded as almost absolutely infinite. I 
need not say that this view of the past history of the globe is 
a very different one from that which is commonly taken [viz., 
the Biblical view]. It is so widely different that it is abso- 
lutely impossible to effect any kind of community — any kind 
of parallel, far less any sort of reconciliation between these two. 
One of these must be true; the other is not." Here, then, 

A* 



io 



A BLOW AT THE HOOT OF 



Prof. Huxley, relying on the chronological records of strata, 
positively contradicts the Bible. 

§ 9. From the preceding statements we learn, (1) That 
Prof. Huxley teaches that there is a single primordial cell, from 
which the infinite diversity of animal and vegetable life is 
evolved. See § 1. (2) That, although no one has been able 
to build up inorganic combinations into protein matter, so that 
it would begin to live, yet the researches of modern chemistry 
encourage the hope that it may be done. See § 2. (3) We 
learn that Prof. Huxley substantially agrees with the views 
and theories of Anaximander, Buddhism, Mill, and Hume. See 
§ 3. (4) That he agrees with, and is coequal to, Mr. Darwin 
in what is called Darwinism. See §§ 4-6. And (5) that 
he, with others, laughs to scorn the idea of the recent origin 
of man, — believes that man has lived on the earth hundreds 
of millions of years, and adduces the age of strata to prove 
that the age of the world exceeds computation, and that the 
Biblical view is positively and absolutely false. See §§ 7, 8. 
Then Huxleyism seems to be the sum of all modern scientific 
infidelity and scepticism. 



MODERN INFIDELITY AND SCEPTICISM. 11 



§ 10. In Prof. Huxley's lectures in New York, on the direct 
evidence of Evolution, we have an outline of some of his pecu- 
liar views. u There are only three views — three hypotheses — 
which ever have been entertained, or well can be entertained, 
respecting the past history of nature. Upon the first of these 
the assumption is, that the order of nature which now obtains 
has always obtained ; in other words, that the present course of 
nature, the present order of things, has existed from all eternity. 

§ 11. " The second hypothesis is, that the present state of 
things, the present order of nature, has had only a limited 
duration, and that at some period in the past the state of 
things which we now know, arose and came into existence 
without any precedent similar condition from which it could 
have proceeded. 

§ 12. " The third hypothesis, which is the hypothesis of 
Evolution, and that supposes that at any given period in the 
past we should meet with a state of things more or less simi- 
lar to the present, but less similar in proportion as we go back 
in time ; that the physical form of the earth could be traced 
back in this way to a condition in which its parts were sepa- 
rated as little more than nebulous cloud, making part of a 
whole in which we find the sun and the other planetary bodies 
also resolved ; and that if we traced back the animal world, 
and the vegetable world, we should find preceding what now 
exist, animals and plants not identical with them, but like 
them, only increasing their differences as we go back in time ; 
and at the same time becoming simpler and simpler, until 
finally we should arrive at that gelatinous mass which, so far 
as our present knowledge goes, is the foundation of all life." 
See Tribune Extra, No. 36, pp. 15, 16. 

§ 13. In the discussion of these views the Professor pro- 
poses to use two kinds of evidence, one of which he calls 
testimonial evidence, or human evidence, which he considers 
the least reliable ; because, although a man might be truthful, 



12 



A BLOW AT THE ROOT OF 



yet he might be mistaken. And the other he calls circum- 
stantial evidence, or the evidence drawn from the records in 
the strata of the earth, in which he thinks there can be no 
mistake. " Let me try now," says he, " to put before you in a 
few words the sum and substance of circumstantial evidence as 
to the past history of the earth, which is written without the 
possibility of a mistake, with no chance of error in the stratified 
rucks. What we find is that that great series of formations repre- 
sents a period 6f time of which our human chronologies hardly 
afford us a unit of measure. I will not pretend to say how we 
ought to measure this time, in millions or in billions of years." 

§ 14. " 2sow, 7 ' says Professor Huxley, " we must turn to 
our three hypotheses. Let me first direct your attention to 
what is to be said about the hypothesis of the eternity of this 
state of things in which we now are. What will first strike 
you is that that is a hypothesis which, whether true or false, 
is not capable of verification by evidence ; for in order to 
secure testimony to an eternity of duration you must have 
an eternity of witnesses, or an infinity of circumstances, and 
neither of these are attainable. It is utterly impossible that 
such evidence should be carried beyond a certain point of time, 
and all that could be said at most would be that there is 
nothing to contradict the hypothesis. But when you look 
not to the testimonial evidence — which might not be good for 
much in this case — but to the cireumstantH evidence, then 
you find that this hypothesis is absolutely incompatible with 
that circumstantial evidence, and the latter is of so plain and 
simple a character that it is impossible in any way to escape 
from the conclusions which it forces upon us." 

§ 15. ,,; You are, in fact, all aware that the crust of the 
earth, the superficial part of the earth, is not of a homogeneous 
character, but that it is rnade up of a number of beds of 
strata, the titles of the principal groups of which are placed 
upon that diagram^ — beds of sand, beds of stone, beds of 
clay, of slate, of granite, and of various other materials." 



MODERN INFIDELITY AND SCEPTICISM. 13 



DIAGKAM. 





Age of Man, 




or 




Quaternary, 20. 






< 








< 


Tertiary, 19. 


< 




< 









THE ORDER OF NATURE. 

Epochs, 



Wealden Epoch. 



Oolitic 
Epoch. 



Liassic 
Epoch. 



Pliocene. 



Miocene. 



Eocene. 



( Upper or White 
Upper Cretaceous. < Chalk. 

(Lower or Gray. 



Middle Cretaceous (Upper Greensand). 
Lower Cretaceous (Lower Greensand); 



( 1 



Wealden. 
Upper Oolite. 

Middle Oolite. 

Lower Oolite. 

Upper Lias. 
Marls tone. 
Lower Lias. 

Keuper. 

Muschelkalk. 

Bunter-sandstein. 

2 



| Purbeck, Portland, and 



Kimineridge Clay. 
' Coral-rag. 
Oxford Clay. 
Stonesfield. 
Inferior Oolite. 



14 



A BLOW AT THE BOOT OF 







X C I ill < L J J , 


15 


Permian. 


< 






14c 


Upper Coal Measures. 


CD 
P 

C 




















z 




Carboniferous. 


14b 


Lower Coal Measures 


< 
o 






14a 


Millstone Grit. 






Subcarboniferous. 


13b 
13a 


Upper. 
Lower. 


X 
X 




Catskill 


jg 


vai^&iii. 


B 




Chemung. 


lib 
11a 


Chemung. 
Portage. 


< 















10c 


Genesee. 






Hamilton. 


10b 


Hamilton. 


< 






10a 


Marcellus. 








9c 


Corniferous. 


2; 
O 




Corniferous. 


9b 


Schoharie. 








9a 


Cauda-galli. 






— TT^i — — 

Onskany. 


g 


Oriskany. 


s 

H 




Lower Helderberg. 


7 


Lower Helderberg. 


IBB A 


1 


Sal in a. 


6 


Salina. 














- 


5c 


^Niagara. 


INV] 


p 


Niagara. 


5b 


Liinton. 








_ 

oa 


-ueuina. 


< 






4c 


Cincinnati. 






Trenton. 


4b 


L tica. 








4a 


Trenton. 


< 












33 




3c 


Chazy. 


< 

p 


ower 


Canadian. 


3b 
3a 


Quebec. 
Calciferous. 










Potsdam. 








2b 






Primordial or Cambrian. 


2a 


Acadian. 






Archaean. 


1 


Archajan. 



MODERN INFIDELITY AND SCEPTICISM. 15 



§ 16. "On further examination it is found that these beds 
of solid material are of exactly the same nature as those which 
are at present being formed under known conditions at the 
surface of the earth : that that chalk, for example, which forms 
a great part of the cretaceous formation in some parts of the 
world, that that chalk is identical in its physical and chemical 
characters, or practically so, with a substance which is now being 
formed at the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean, and covers an 
enormous area ; that other bodies of rock are comparable with 
the sands which are being formed upon sea-shores, packed to- 
gether ; and so on. Thus it becomes certain that each of these 
bodies of rock, of which a total of not less than seventy thou- 
sand feet is known [see § 57], that all these have been deposited 
and formed by natural agencies, either out of the waste and 
washing of the dry land, or else as the product of plants and 
animals. Now, these rocks or strata are full of the remains of 
animals and plants. Countless thousands of species of animals 
and plants as perfectly recognizable as those which you meet with 
in herbaria at the present day, as the shells and remains which 
you pick up upon the beach, — countless thousands of species 
of these creatures have been imbedded in the sand or mud or 
limestone, just as they are being imbedded now. They furnish 
us with a record which cannot be subject to any misinterpreta- 
tion [see §§ 8, 13], looking at it broadly, as to the kind of things 
that have lived upon the surface of the earth during the time 
that is registered by this great thickness of stratified rocks. 
The most superficial study of these remains shows us that the 
animals and plants which live at the present time have had 
only a temporary duration, that you find them and such as 
they are for the most part only in the uppermost strata, here 
called post tertiary. As you go back in time they become 
scantier, their places are taken by other forms more diver- 
sified, and in the Jurassic and Triassic you find yet others, 
different from the Cretaceous or Tertiary, and from those 



16 



A BLOW AT THE ROOT OF 



of the present day, and so on as you go further and further 
back. 

§ 17. " Why, then the circumstantial evidence absolutely 
negatives the conception of the eternity of the present condi- 
tion of things. We can say with certainty that such has not 
been the course of nature. We can say with certainty that 
the present condition of things has been for a comparatively 
short time, and that so far as animal and vegetable nature are 
concerned, that that has been preceded by a different condition 
of things. We can pursue this fact until we come to the lowest 
of stratified rocks, in which we lose the indications of life 
totally. The hypothesis of the eternity of the present condi- 
tion of things may therefore be put out of court altogether." 
See Trib. Extra, No. 36, pp. 17, 18. 

§ 18. " We now come," says Prof. Huxley, " to what I would 
call Milton's hypothesis, — the hypothesis that the present con- 
dition of things has endured for a comparatively moderate 
time, and at the commencement of that time came into exist- 
ence within the course of six days. If you will turn to the 
seventh book of ' Paradise Lost,' you will find there stated 
the theory, the hypothesis to which I refer. 

" I doubt not that it may have excited some surprise in your 
mind that I should have spoken of this as Milton's hypothesis, 
rather than that I should have chosen the terms which are 
much more familiar to you, such as c the doctrine of creation/ 
or 1 the Biblical doctrine,' or £ the doctrine of Moses,' all of 
which terms, as applied to the hypothesis to which I have just 
referred, certainly are much more familiar to you than the title 
of the Miltonic hypothesis. But I have had what I cannot 
but think are very weighty reasons for taking the course which 
I have pursued. For example, I have discarded the title of 
the hypothesis of creation, because my present business is not 
with the question as to how nature was originated, as to the 
causes which have led to her origination, but as to the manner 



MODERN INFIDELITY AND SCEPTICISM. 17 



and order of her origination. Our present inquiry is not why 
the objects which constitute nature came into existence," etc. 
See Trib. Extra, No. 36, pp. 18, 19. 

§ 19. But if the reader will turn to Milton's " Paradise 
Lost," and examine it, he will see that Milton teaches as fully 
as Moses does, that God created all things ; and that, although 
Moses gives no reason why God made the world and man, 
Milton teaches that the reason was ultimately to fill the vacancy 
occasioned by the fall of Satan and his angels ; and that, while 
Moses does not tell how God created all things, Milton says that 
God sent forth his Son with a great retinue of chariots, etc, 

"Then staid the fervid wheels, and in his hand 
He took the golden compasses, prepar'd 
In God's eternal store, to circumscribe 
This universe, and all created things : 
One foot he center' d, and the other turn'd 
Round through the vast profundity obscure; 
And said, ' Thus far extend thy bounds, 
This be thy just circumference, world ! 
Thus God the heaven created, thus the earth." 

It seems, then, that Prof. Huxley rejects Moses because 
he thinks he tells too much, but adopts Milton, who tells a 
good deal more. consistency, thou art a jewel ! 

§ 20. Again, Prof. Huxley says, " It is not my business to 
say what the Hebrew text contains, and what it does not ; and, 
in the second place, were I to say this was the Biblical hy- 
pothesis, I should be met by the authority of many eminent 
scholars, to say nothing of men of science, who in recent times 
have absolutely denied that this doctrine is to be found in 
Genesis at all." (See Trib. Extra, No. 36, p. 19.) In an- 
swer to this we would say, that if it is not Prof. Huxley's 
business he ought not to meddle ; and that the authority 
of men who would deny so plain a fact, however learned and 
scientific they may be, ought to have but little influence upon 

2* 



13 



A BLOW AT THE ROOT OF 



the minds of people of common sense. But the reader may 
see this subject fully elaborated and explained in Morrow's 
Thesaurus. 

§ 21. Once more, Prof. Huxley says, "I have carefully 
abstained from speaking of this as a Mosaic doctrine, because 
we are now assured upon the authority of the highest critics, 
and even dignitaries in the church, that there is no evidence 
whatever that Moses ever wrote this chapter [the first chapter 
of Genesis], or knew anything about it. I don't say — I give 
no opinion : it would be an impertinence upon my part to vol- 
unteer an opinion upon such a subject. But that being the 
state of opinion among the scholars and the clergy, it is well 
for us the laity, who stand outside, to avoid entangling our- 
selves in such a vexed question. So, as there is a doubt, and 
happily Milton leaves us no conceivable ambiguity as to what 
he means, I will continue to speak of it as the Miltonian 
hypothesis.*' See Trib. Extra, No. 36, p. 19. 

§ 22. (1.) In answer to these statements, we will first en- 
deavor to show that Moses did hnow something about and 
did write the books called the law, or Pentateuch, including 
the first chapter of Genesis. 

We learn from Josephus that the Jews had twenty- two 
books, containing the records of all past time, which were 
justly believed to be divine ; five of which were written by 
Moses, hence they were called the Pentateuch, and contained 
his laws and the traditions of the origin of mankind until 
his death. See Whiston's Josephus, p. 581. 

Again, Josephus says, " Moses did not begin the establish- 
ment of his laics after the same manner that other legislators 
did ; I mean," says he, " upon contracts and other rights be- 
tween one man and another ; but by raising their minds up- 
wards to regard God in his creation of the world, and by 
persuading them that we men are the most excellent of the 
creatures of God upon earth." 



MODERN INFIDELITY AND SCEPTICISM. 19 



Again, he says, " I shall now betake myself to the history 
before me, after I have first mentioned what Moses says of the 
creation of the world, which I find described in the sacred 
books after the manner following : ' In the beginning God 
created the heaven and the earth.' But when the earth did 
not come into sight, but was covered with thick darkness, and a 
wind moved upon its surface, God commanded that there should 
be light. And when that was made he considered the whole 
mass, and separated the light from the darkness, and the 
name he gave to one was night, and the other he called day, 
and he named the beginning of light, and the time of rest, the 
evening and the morning. And this was indeed the first day. 
But Moses said it was one day, the cause of which I am able 
to give even now ; but because I have promised to give such 
reasons for all things in a treatise by itself, I shall put off its 
exposition to that time. After this, on the second day, he 
placed the heaven over the whole world, and separated it 
from the other parts, and he determined it should stand by 
itself. He also placed a crystalline [firmament] around it, and 
put it together in a manner agreeable to the earth, and fitted 
it for giving moisture and rain, and for affording the advan- 
tages of dews. On the third day he appointed the dry land 
to appear, with the sea itself around about it ; and on the 
very same day he made the plants and the seeds to spring out 
of the earth. On the fourth day he adorned the heavens with 
the sun, the moon, and the other stars, and appointed them for 
their motions and courses, that the vicissitudes of the seasons 
might be clearly signified. And on the fifth day he produced 
the living creatures, both those that swim and those that fly, 
the former in the sea, the latter in the air. He also sorted 
them as to society and mixture for procreation, and that their 
kinds might increase and multiply. The sixth day he created 
the four-footed beasts and made them male and female. On 
the same day he also formed man. Accordingly Moses says 



20 



A BLOW AT THE ROOT OF 



that in just six days the world, and all that is therein, was 
made, and that the seventh was a rest and a release from 
such operations, whence it is that we celebrate a rest from our 
labors on that day and call it the Sabbath, which word denotes 
rest in the Hebrew tongue. Moreover, Moses, after the seventh 
day was over, begins to talk philosophically, and concerning 
the formation of man he says thus : That God took dust 
from the ground, and formed man, and inserted in him a spirit 
and a soul, etc. Moses says further, That God planted a 
paradise in the East, flourishing with all sorts of trees, and 
that among them was the tree of life, and another of knowledge, 
whereby was to be known what was good and evil" etc. See 
Whiston's Joseph us, pp. 24, 25. The above statements are 
positive proofs of the facts denied. 

§ 23. " And the earth was without form, and void [chaotic], 
and darkness was on the face of the deep, etc. And God said, 
Let there be light : and there was light." Gen. i. 2, 3. " And 
Moses said unto the Lord, my Lord, I am not eloquent, 
neither heretofore, nor since thou hast spoken unto thy ser- 
vant ; but I am slow of speech, and of slow tongue." Ex. iv. 
10. " And the Lord God commanded the man, saying, Of 
every tree of the garden thou mayest freely eat ; but of the 
tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of 
it," etc. Gen. ii. 16, 17. 

" After the first chaos there was an incomprehensible light, 
which dispelled the darkness and put an end to all deformity, as 
the man with the slow tongue has left it in writing." (Lucian.) 
Longinus, whom Eunapius calls a living library and a walking 
study, says, " Thus also the legislator of the Jews, who was no 
ordinary man, since he worthily comprehended and declared the 
power of the gods, writing thus at the very introduction of his 
laws says, ' And God said' — what ? ' Let the light be ; and it 
was ; let the earth be ; and it was. ' " Chalcidius to Timseus 
has these words : " That as Moses says, God forbade the first 



MODERN INFIDELITY AND SCEPTICISM. 21 



men those trees by which the knowledge of good and evil 
should steal into their minds." (Clarke's Grotius, p. 55). And 
Manetho, Eupolemus, Artapanus, Tacitus, Diodorus Siculus, 
Strabo, Justin the abbreviator of Trogus, and Juvenal, besides 
many other ancient writers, all testify that Moses was the leader 
of the Jews, and the writer of their laws or Pentateuch. 

§ 24. And, although M. Volney asserted that it was in vain 
to look for any indication whatever of the Pentateuch in the 
book of Joshua, yet we think that the statements in the Pen- 
tateuch, and in the book of Joshua, taken in connection with 
the statements of heathen authors, demonstrate the truth of 
Moses, the Pentateuch, and Joshua. 

" And Moses called unto Joshua, and said unto him in the 
sight of all Israel, Be strong and of a good courage ; for thou 
must go with this people unto the land which the Lord hath 
sworn to their fathers to give them ; and thou shalt cause 
them to inherit it. And Moses wrote this law, and delivered 
it unto the priests the sons of Levi, which bare the ark of the 
covenant of the Lord, and to all the elders of Israel." Deut. 
xxxi. 7, 9. 

§ 25. " Now after the death of Moses the servant of the 
Lord, it came to pass that the Lord spake unto Joshua the son 
of Nun, Moses' minister, saying, Moses my servant is dead ; 
now therefore arise, go over this Jordan, thou, and all this 
people, unto the land which I do give them. Only be thou 
strong and very courageous, that thou mayest observe to do 
according to all the law, which Moses commanded thee. 
This book of the law shall not depart out of thy mouth ; but 
thou shalt meditate therein day and night." (Josh. i. 1, 2, 7, 9.) 
And in the 24th chapter of the book of Joshua, we learn that 
Joshua, commencing with the history of the Jews as it is re- 
corded in Gen. xi. 26, gave an outline of their history in per- 
fect accordance with the Pentateuch and book of Joshua, which 
is good evidence that the Pentateuch and this book of the law 



22 



A BLOW AT THE ROOT OF 



were the same, and that he had meditated on them day and 
night, or he could not have so minutely recounted the facts 
mentioned in them. 

§ 26. And the fact that Joshua the son of Nun did drive 
out the Phoenicians, or Canaanites, and take possession of 
their land, is proved by monumental history. 

" At Tangiers are two columns, made of white stone, near 
the great fountain, having carved upon them, ' We are they 
who fled from the face of Joshua the Robber, the son of Nun.' " 
(Procopius.) And says Suidas, " There are up to the present 
time such slabs in Numidia containing the following inscrip- 
tion : 1 We are Canaanites whom Joshua the Robber drove 
out.' " 

§ 27. Porphyry, one of the most acute and learned enemies 
of Christianity, admitted the genuineness of the Pentateuch, 
and acknowledged that Moses was prior to the Phoenician 
Sanchoniathon, who lived before the Trojan war. He even 
contended for the truth of Sanchoniathon's account of the 
Jews from its coincidence with the Mosaic history. Nor 
was the genuineness of the Pentateuch denied by any of the 
numerous writers against the gospel during the first four cen- 
turies of the Christian era, although the fathers constantly 
appealed to the history and prophecies of the Old Testament 
in support of the divine origin of the doctrines which they 
taught. 

The power of historical truth compelled the emperor Julian, 
whose favor to the Jews appears to have proceeded solely from 
his hostility to the Christians, to acknowledge that persons 
instructed by the Spirit of God once lived among the Israel- 
ites, and to confess that the books which bore the name of 
Moses were genuine, and that the facts which they contained 
were worthy of credit. And even Mohammed maintained th 
inspiration of Moses, and revered the sanctity of the Jewis 
laws. See Home's Introd., vol. i. p. 35. 



MODERN INFIDELITY AND SCEPTICISM. 23 

§ 28. (2.) There is not as much evidence that Milton wrote 
the seventh book of " Paradise Lost" as there is that Moses 
wrote the Pentateuch, including the first chapter of Genesis, 
or that he had as good authority for what he said in the one 
as Moses had for what he said in the other. Milton's " Para- 
dise Lost" has been circulating among the English-speaking 
people for more than two hundred years ; but the Pentateuch, 
which is its own witness that Moses wrote it, has been in cir- 
culation among the Jewish people for more than three thou- 
sand years, and at an early period it was translated into different 
languages, and is now read in at least two hundred and sev- 
enty-one tongues among seven hundred millions of people. 
See Morrow's Thesaurus, § 550. And Dr. A. Clarke says, 
I Every believer in Divine Revelation finds himself amply 
justified in taking for granted that the Pentateuch is the work 
of Moses. For more than three thousand years this has been 
the invariable opinion of those who were best qualified to form 
a correct judgment on the subject. The Jewish church, 
from its foundation, has attributed it to the Jewish lawgiver 
alone " 

And Milton, for the most part, founds " Paradise Lost" upon 
traditions, heathen mythologies, etc., and invokes as his muse 
Urania, the daughter of Jupiter, to tell him what Raphael 
(an apocryphal angel) told Adam about the creation, etc.; 
while Moses had the traditions handed down through a few of 
the long-lived patriarchs from Adam to himself, and perhaps 
documents written by some of his ancestors. 15 " And Josephus 
I says, " The books of Moses were justly believed to be divine." 
|The emperor Julian virtually acknowledged the inspiration 
I of Moses. Chalcidius says, " Moses was the wisest of men, 
who, as they say, was enlivened not by human eloquence, hut 
by divine inspiration. 



* Morrow's Thesaurus, H 312, 313. 



24 



A BLOW AT THE ROOT OF 



" 1 They learn and keep and fear the Jewish law 
Which Moses in his secret volume gave/ 99 

And even Mohammed maintained the inspiration of Moses ; j 
and Paul says that all Scripture is given by inspiration of j 
God. 

§ 29. (3.) The Bible doctrine, or common interpretation j 
of the first chapter of Genesis, is, that in six literal days, J 
at a period not more than six or eight thousand years ago, j 
God created heaven and earth, the sea, and all that in them 
is, and rested the seventh day; and the speculations of I 
geologists and scientists concerning creations prior to that 
period are outside of and beyond the Bible, and based solely 
upon the supposed age of strata. See §§ 8, 13, 15, 16. 

§ 30. Now, if the reader will turn back to § 22, and ex- 
amine it, he will see that, according to the statements of Jose- 
phus, the great Jewish historian, the above Bible doctrine, or 
common interpretation of the first chapter of Genesis, was 
substantially the doctrine or interpretation given to it by the 
Jews, the very people to whom Moses delivered it, and was 
held by them down to the commencement of the Christian 
era, when Josephus wrote. See also Mai. iv. 4. 

§ 31. And Sir Charles Lyell says, " It had been the gen- \ 
eral belief of the Christian world down to the period now 
under consideration [1715], that the origin of this planet was 
not more remote than a few thousand years ; and that since 
the creation the deluge was the only great catastrophe by 
which considerable change had been wrought upon the earth's | 
surface." Lyell's " Prin. GeoL," p. 20. 

§ 32. " Scilla, a Sicilian painter, published in 1670 a 
treatise, in Latin, on the fossils of Calabria, illustrated by v 
good engravings. Like many eminent naturalists of his day, 
Scilla gave way to the popular persuasion, that all fossil shells 
were the effects and proofs of the Mosaic deluge. The theo- 
logians who now entered the field in Italy, Germany, France, |! 



MODERN INFIDELITY AND SCEPTICISM. 25 



and England, were innumerable ; and henceforward, they who 
refused to subscribe to the position that the marine organic 
remains were proofs of the Mosaic deluge, were exposed to 
the imputation of disbelieving the whole of the sacred 
I writings." 

§ 33. In 1696, Winston published a work enticed " A New 
! Theory of the Earth; wherein the Creation of the World in 
j Six Days, the Universal Deluge, and the General Conflagration, 
\ as laid down in the Holy Scriptures, are shown to be per- 
fectly agreeable to Reason and Philosophy. 11 He was one of 
the first who ventured to propose that the text of Genesis 
1 should be interpreted differently from its ordinary acceptation, 
so that the doctrine of the earth having existed long previous 
to man might no longer be regarded as unorthodox. (See 
Lyell's " Prin. Geol.," pp. 32, 33.) This then marks the 
period when geologists and scientists, who professed to respect 
the Bible, first ventured beyond and outside of it, upon 
i records based solely upon the supposed age of strata, and 
may be called the Whiston gap. 

§ 34. In 1788, Hutton published his "Theory of the 
Earth. 11 This treatise was the first in which geology was de- 
j clared to be in no way concerned about " questions as to the 
origin of things" and in which an attempt was made to ex-, 
plain the fomier changes of the earth's crust by reference ex- 
clusively to natural agents. " The ruins of an older world" 
said Hutton, " are visible in the present structure of our 
planet; and the strata which now compose our continents 
have been once beneath the sea, and were formed out of the 
waste of pre-existing continents. 11 He imagined that the 
continents were first gradually destroyed by aqueous degrada- 
tion, and when their ruins had furnished materials for new 
continents, they were upheaved by violent convulsions. He 
therefore required alternate periods of general disturbance 
and repose ; and such he believed had been and would for- 
b 3 



26 



A BLOW AT THE BOOT OF 



ever be the course of nature. Indeed, Hutton said, " In the 
economy of the world I can find no traces of a beginning, 
no prospect of an end." This may be called the Huttonian 
gap. which marks the period when geologists and scientists, 
ignoring the Bible, going out of and beyond it, upon geo- 
logical records of strata, began to set up the modern systems 
of infidelity and atheism. 

§ 35. These, and former innovations and departures from 
the commonly received interpretation of the Mosaic narra- 
tive of Creation, were severely criticised by different classes 
of men. 

Voltaire said, " Every one of them destroys and renovates 
the earth after his own fashion, as Descartes framed it : for 
philosophers put themselves without ceremony in the place of 
God, and think to create a universe with a word." 

Cowper the poet ironically said : 

" Some drill and bore 
The solid earth, and from the strata there 
Extract a register, by which we learn 
That he who made it, and revealed its date 
To Moses, was mistaken in its age."'' 

And Williams, a mineral surveyor of Edinburgh, in the 
preface to his " Natural History of the Mineral Kingdom," 
charges Hutton with £< warping everything to support the 
eternity of the world." 

§ 36. Kirwan, President of the Royal Academy of Dublin, 
in the Introduction to his " Geological Essays," 1799, said, 
" That sound geology graduated into religion, and was required 
to dispel certain systems of atheism or infidelity, of which 
they had had recent experience." He was strongly opposed 
to Hutton's views, and constantly adduced the Mosaic writings 
in defence of his own. 

And De Luc, in the preliminary discourse to his Treatise 
on Geology, said, " The weapons have been changed by which 



MODERN INFIDELITY AND SCEPTICISM. 



27 



revealed religion is attacked ; it is now assailed by geology, 
and the knowledge of this science has become essential to 
theologians." And he imputed the failure of former geological 
systems to their having been anti-Mosaical and directed against 
a " sublime tradition." 

§ 37. " The prevailing opinion, until recently, limits the 
duration of the globe to man's brief existence, which extends 
backward and forward only a few thousand years. But geology 
teaches us that this is only one of the units of a long series 
in its history. It develops a plan of the Deity respecting its 
preparation and use, grand in its outlines, and beautiful in its 
execution ; reaching far back into past eternity, and looking 
forward, perhaps indefinitely, into the future." C. H. Hitch- 
cock, " Elem. Geol.," p. .381 (see §§ 33, 34). 

§ 38. Again, as to the religious aspect of those who adopt 
views outside of and beyond the Bible, Prof. Hitchcock, in 
his " Inferences from Paleontology, in connection with Dynam- 
ical Geology," says : 

"Inference 6. — The changes which the earth has expe- 
rienced, and the different species of organic beings that have 
appeared, were not the result of any power inherent in the 
laws of nature, but a special Divine creating power. 

" The opposite hypothesis, when fully stated, embraces three 
distinct branches. The first supposes the present universe to 
have been developed by the power of natural law from nebulous 
matter, without any special Divine interposition, according to 
the views of the eminent mathematician, La Place.* This 
has been called the cosmogony of the subject. The second 
supposition is, that certain laws inherent in matter are able of 
themselves to produce the lowest forms without special crea- 
ting power.f This forms the zoogony of the subject. The third 



* See Morrow's Thesaurus, \ 166, and Note, 
f Ibid., I 46. 



28 



A BLOW AT THE ROOT OF 



supposition is, that in the lowest forms of organization thus 
produced, called monads, there exists an inherent tendency 
to improvement, and thus from a mere mass of jelly vitalized 
higher and more complicated forms have been eliminated, 
until man at last was the result.* This is called the zoonomy 
of the subject. 

" The supposed proof of this hypothesis is derived from as- 
tronomy, physiology, galvanism, botany, zoology, and geology. 
But it is only the argument from the latter subject that can 
receive any attention in this work. When this hypothesis is 
fully carried out it is intended and adapted to vindicate atheism. 
When advocated by a professed believer in the Deity, and even 
in fevelation, it is made to assume a much more attractive^ 
aspect." (C. H. Hitchcock, " Elem. Geol.," p. 373.) The afore- 
mentioned three opposite hypotheses are all included in Hux- 
leyism. See § 9. And all the departures from the "prevailing 
opinion," which Prof. Huxley and others use in defiant oppo- 
sition to the Biblical doctrine, or common interpretation of 
the first chapter of Genesis, are founded upon records of time, 
which geologists suppose to be inscribed upon and within the 
strata of the earth. See §§ 8, 13, 15, 16, and 29-38. We 
wish the reader to examine these references closely, as we ex- 
pect to have a special use for them in the sequel. 

§ 39. Furthermore, Prof. Hitchcock, basing his authority 
as a geologist upon the supposed age of strata, not only goes 
out on strata beyond the Mosaic record, but modestly contra- 
dicts the Bible both before and after leaving it. 

" We subjoin," says he, " in parallel columns, the principal 
events as they are revealed by the sacred penman and by 
geology." 



* See Morrow's Thesaurus, 168, 176. 

t It seems to me that it -would be a much more ridiculous aspect. 



MODERN INFIDELITY AND SCEPTICISM. 29 



ORDER OF CREATION. 



IN THE BIBLE. 


IN GEOLOGY. 


6th 
Day. 


Max, 
Mammals, 

and 
Reptiles. 


Max: Full Fauxa and Flora. 

Alluvium. 


Mollusca, Aeticulata. 
Mammalia ; Dicotyledons. 

Tertiary. 


5th 
Day. 


Birds and 
Sea Animals. 


Badiata; Mollusca. 

Chalk. 


Birds; Beptiles. 

Oolite. 


Beptiles. 

Trias. 


4th 
Day. 


Sun, Moon, and 
Stars created. 


Saurian Beptiles. 

Permian. 


Dicotyledons; 

ACROGENS. 

Carboniferous. 


Batrachians. 
Fishes. 
Conifera? ? 

Devonian. 


3d 
Day. 


Plants of all sorts. 
Land emerges. 


Fishes. 


2d 
Day. 


Atmosphere 
created. 


Articulata. 
Badiata. 
Mollusca. 
Algas. 

Silurian and Cambrian . 


1st 
Day. 


Light, 
Darkness, and Ocean. 


Mostly Ocean. 

Azoic. 


1 


Igneous Fluidity. 



" The most important conclusion drawn from this table is, 
that the sacred writer did not and could not give the true 
chronological order of events." And again, "If it should 
turn out that fossil men exist in deposits decidedly older than 
Adam, they may belong to extinct species, and therefore not 
prove the pre-Adamic existence of the present race." See 
C. H. Hitchcock's " Elem. Geol.," pp. 388-390, and 355. 
If these statements be true, what is the use of the Bible, and 
what is the foundation of our hope ? See 1 Cor., xv. 45, 
and Acts, xvii. 24-28. If Adam was not the first and only 
man created, the Bible is false, 

3* 



30 



A BLOW AT THE ROOT OF 



§ 40. And Prof. Dana says, " Accepting the account in 
Genesis as true, the seeming discrepancies between it and 
geology rest mainly here : geology holds, and has held from 
the first, that the progress of creation "was mainly through 
secondary causes, for the existence of the science presupposes 
this. Moses, on the contrary, was thought to sustain the idea 
of a simple fiat for each step." (Bibl. Sac, No. 49, p. 108.) 
And again he says, i: In all growth there is attending decay. 
The animal body is in incessant movement, growing and dying, 
in all its history. Besides this continuous flow, there is also 
in growth an adaptation to new conditions of existence, in- 
volving certain changes of structure. So the earth in its 
geological progress passed through changes of climate from 
hot to cold, and changes in the water and land ; and these 
involved a passing away of the species of plants and animals 
as the new conditions came on. We have abundantly illus- 
trated this in our first article, where it is shown that destruc- 
tions of life followed destructions ; creations, creations ; and 
thus the earth was in incessant change. Twenty or more 
sweeping destructions occurred (besides other partial ones) on 
this continent after the appearance of animal life (that is, 
through or during the fifth and sixth days of Genesis,' and 
mostly the fifth), and a larger number in Europe. The catas- 
trophe after the coal period in North America corresponds to 
the middle of the fifth day." Dana, Bibl. Sac, Xo. 55, pp. 
4S1, 4S2, and note. 

Here Prof. Dana acknowledges that there are discrepancies 
between the fiat principle and geology; and we know that 
the Scriptures recognize the fiat principle as the commonly- 
received interpretation of the first chapter of Genesis : " By 
the word of the Lord were the heavens made, and all the host 
of them by the breath of his mouth. For he spake, and it 
was done ; he commanded, and it stood fast. Let them praise 
the name of the Lord, for he commanded, and they were ere- 



MODERN INFIDELITY AND SCEPTICISM. 31 



ated." (Ps. xxxiii. 6, 9 ; cxlviii. 5.) And his statements 
about progress of creation, the growth and decay, the changes 
from hot to cold, the passing away of the species of animals 
and plants, and the many sweeping destructions and new crea- 
tions, which occurred after the appearance of animal life, 
certainly must be gratuitous or founded upon the records of 
strata, outside of and beyond the Bible.* 

§ 41. That the speculations of geologists and scientists in 
opposition to the Bible doctrine, or common interpretation of 
the first chapter of Genesis, are founded solely upon the age 
of strata, may be further seen by returning to Prof. Huxley's 
Lecture, Trib. Extra, No. 36, p. 20. Here we find him with 
his diagram (see § 15), or chart of geological epochs measured 
by the age of strata, placed before him. And after having 
negatived the Miltonic [Mosaic] record down to the carbonif- 
erous era or epoch, he goes on to say, " There are to be found 
in the coal of your own coal-fields numerous insects allied to 
our cockroaches. There are to be found there scorpions of 
large size, and so similar to existing scorpions that it requires 
the practiced eye of the naturalist to distinguish them, and 
even spiders. Inasmuch as these things can be proved to have 
had full life in the carboniferous epoch, it is perfectly clear 
that, if the Miltonic [Mosaic] account is correct, those huge 
rocks extending from the middle of the Paleozoic formations 
must belong to the day or period which is termed by Milton 
[Moses] the sixth day of the creation. But, further, it is 
expressly stated that aquatic animals took their origin upon 
the fifth day, and did not exist before ; hence all formations in 
which aquatic animals can be proved to exist and therefore 
lived at the time these formations were deposited, all these 
| must have been deposited during the time since the period 



* The Bible only mentions one creation and six periods, but he has 
twenty in America and a large number in Europe. 



32 



A BLOW AT THE ROOT OF 



which Milton [Moses] speaks of as the fifth day. But there 
is absolutely no fossiliferous rock in which you do not find the 
remains of marine animals." 

The lowest forms of life in the Silurian are marine animals, 
and if the view which is entertained by Principal Dawson and 
Dr. Carpenter of the eozoon be correct, if it is true that 
animal remains exist at a period as far antecedent to the de- 
posit in the coal as the coal is from us, at the very bottom in 
a series of stratified rock, in what are called the Laurentian 
strata,* it follows plainly enough from this that the whole 
series of stratified rocks, if they are to be brought into har- 
mony with Milton [Moses] at all, must be referred to the sixth 
day, and we cannot hope to find the slightest trace of the 
work of the other days in our stratified formations. 

" When one comes to consider this, one sees how absolutely 
futile are the attempts that have been made to run a parallel 
between the stratified rocks as we know them, and the account 
which Milton [Moses] gives of it. The whole series of 
stratified rocks must be referred to the two last periods. It 
is of course futile to look in carboniferous rocks in the mio- 
cene for animals which according to the hypothesis were of the 
sixth day. Not only is there this objection to any attempt to 
run a parallel between the Miltonic [Mosaic] account and the 
actual facts, but there is further difficulty. In the Miltonic 
[Mosaic] account the order in which animals should have 
made their appearance in the stratified rocks would be this : 
Fishes, including the great whale, and birds ; after that all 
varieties of terrestrial animals. Nothing could be farther 
from the facts as we find them. As a matter of fact we 



* Professor Molloy and other geologists suppose the Laurentian to be 
at least one hundred and twenty thousand feet — or nearly twenty-three 
miles — below the surface of the earth. See § 57. It is, therefore, very 
certain that geologists know nothing about what is in it. 



MODERN INFIDELITY AND SCEPTICISM. 33 



know of not the slightest evidence of the existence of birds 
before what are indicated [pointing to the chart] as the Juras- 
sic, perhaps the Triassic formations. 

" Other failures of the Miltonic [Mosaic] theory. — If there 
were any parallel between the Miltonic [Mosaic] account and 
the circumstantial evidence [or evidence founded upon the 
supposed age of strata, see § 13], we ought to have abun- 
dant evidence in the Devonian, the Silurian, and the Carbonif- 
erous rocks. I need not tell you that this is not the case, and 
that not a trace of birds makes its appearance until the far 
later period which I have mentioned." 

§ 42. " Let me try now," says Professor Huxley, " to put 
before you in a few words the sum and substance of the cir- 
cumstantial evidence as to the past history of the earth, which 
is written without the possibility of a mistake, with no chance 
of error, in the stratified rocks. "What we find is that the 
great series of formations represents a period of time of which 
our human chronologies hardly afford us a unit of measure. 
I will not pretend to say how we ought to measure this time, 
— in millions or in billions of years.* Happily for my purpose 
and my argument, that is wholly unessential. But that the 
time was enormous, was vast, there is no sort of question." 

Again, referring to these contradictions and abuses of Mil- 
ton, or Moses and the Bible, he says, " I pointed out to you 
that the evidence at our command as completely and fully 



* Dr. McCosh, in his recent address in the Pan -Presbyterian Council, 
Edinburgh, Scotland, said that the revelations of God read by the 
geologists in the rocks showed in "nature red in tooth and claw" for 
millions of centuries the almost immeasurable existence of evil in the world. 
But when the work of creation was finished, which according to the Bible 
could not have beeD more than six or eight thousand years ago, "God 
saw everything that he had made, and behold, it was very good." Gen. 
i. 31. Now, who would have dared to say that Dr. McCosh believes 
that God has given two contradictory revelations ? 
B* 



34 



A BLOW AT THE ROOT OF 



negatives that [Miltonic or Mosaic] hypothesis as it did the 
preceding one. [See § 17.] And I confess that I had too 
much respect for your intelligence to think it necessary to add 
that that negation was equally strong and equally valid what- 
ever the source from which that hypothesis might be derived, 
or whatever the authority it might be supported by." See 
Huxley's Lectures, Trib. Extra, No. 36, pp. 20, 22. 

After tracing out the departures of some geologists from 
the commonly received interpretation of the first chapter of 
Genesis, and returning to Professor Huxley after his covert 
sneers at Moses and the Bible, we found him with his dia- 
gram of strata before him, positively contradicting them over 
the shoulders of John Milton. See § 41. And having en- 
tered the anti-Biblical lists, he marshals its array of evidence 
founded on the age of strata, and sounds its notes of triumph. 
See § 42. Now, what we desire at present is, that the 
reader would carefully examine the preceding statements, and 
particularly note the facts that all these contradictions of the 
Bible are founded upon the age of strata ; and we will at the 
proper time attend to this matter. 



MODERN INFIDELITY AND SCEPTICISM. 35 



§43. Third Hypothesis. — Prof. Huxley divided the evi- 
dence on the third hypothesis — -the hypothesis of evolution — 
into three kinds : first, the neutral ; second, the probable ; and 
third, the demonstrative. Then, after giving examples and 
illustrations of the first two, derived from the fossils of birds, 
reptiles, etc., and stating that these two could not be regarded 
as the highest kind of evidence, he selected the equus ) in- 
cluding the horse, ass, and zebra, as affording demonstrative 
evidence of the doctrine of evolution. And after having given 
some explanations and illustrations, he said, " I think that will 
suffice as a brief indication of some of the most important 
peculiarities and characteristics of the horse. 

"If the hypothesis of evolution is true, what ought to 
happen when we investigate the history of this animal? 
We know that the mammalian type as a whole—that mamma- 
lian animals — are characterized by the possession of a perfectly 
distinct radius and ulna, two separate and distinct movable 
bones. We know further that mammals in general possess 
five toes, often unequal, but still as completely developed as 
the digits of my hand. We know further that the general 
type of mammals possess in the leg not only a complete tibia, 
but a complete fibula. The small bone of the leg is as a general 
rule a perfectly complete, distinct, movable bone. Moreover, 
in the hind foot we find in animals in general five distinct 
toes, just as we do in the fore foot. Hence it follows that we 
have a , differentiated animal like the horse, which has pro- 
ceeded by way of evolution or gradual modification from a 
similar form possessing all the characteristics we find in mam- 
mals in general. If that be true, it follows that if there is 
anywhere preserved in the series of rocks a complete history 
of the horse, that is to say, of the various stages through 
which he has passed, those stages ought gradually to lead to 
some sort of animal which possessed a radius and an ulna, 
distinct, complete tibia and fibula, and in which there were 



36 



A BLOW AT THE ROOT OF 



five toes upon the fore limb, no less than upon the hind 
limb. 

§ 44. " Moreover, in the average general mammalian type, 
the higher mammalian, we find as a constant rule an approxi- 
mation to the number of forty-four complete teeth, of which 
six are cutting teeth, two are canine, and the others of which 
are grinders. In unmodified animals we find the incisors have 
no pit, and that the grinding teeth as a rule increase in size 
from that which lies in front toward those which lie in the 
middle or at the hinder part of the series. Consequently, if 
the theory of evolution be correct, if that hypothesis of the 
origin of living things have a foundation, we ought to find in 
the series the forms which have preceded the horse, animals 
in which the mark upon the incisor gradually more and more 
disappears, animals in which the canine teeth are present in 
both sexes, and animals in which the teeth gradually lose the 
complications of their crowns, and have a simpler and shorter 
crown, while at the same time they gradually increase in size 
from the anterior end of the series toward the posterior. Let 
us turn to the facts and see how they bear upon the require- 
ments of this doctrine of evolution." 

§ 45. Here the lecturer introduced the diagram or chart 
given on page 37, to prove the doctrine of evolution, by the 
gradual progress of changes in the toes and teeth of horses 
through millions of years, as marked in the geological records 
of strata, such as pliocene, miocene, eocene, etc. This is the 
only evidence in the case. But at the proper time we will try 
to prove by scientists and geologists, including Prof. Huxley, 
that they know nothing about the age of strata. 

§ 46. " In what is called here the pliocene formation," says 
Prof. Huxley, " that which constitutes almost the upper division 
of the tertiary series, we find the remains of horses. We also 
find in Europe abundant remains of horses in the most super- 
ficial of all these formations, that is, the post-tertiary, which 



MODERN INFIDELITY AND SCEPTICISM. 37 

immediately lies above the pliocene. But these horses, which 
are abundant in the cave deposits, and in the gravels of Eng- 



FORE HIND FORE UPPER LOWER 

FOOT. FOOT. ARM. MOLAR. MOLAR. 




land and Europe, these horses of which we know the anatom- 
ical structure to perfection, are in all essential respects like 
existing horses. And that is true of all the horses of the 
latter part of the pliocene epoch. But in the middle and 

4 



38 



A BLOW AT THE ROOT OF 



earlier parts of the pliocene epoch, in deposits which be- 
long to that age, and which occur in Germany and Greece, to 
some extent in Britain, and in France, there we find animals 
which are like horses in all the essential particulars which I 
have just described, and the general character of which is so 
entirely like that of the horse that you may follow descriptions 
given in works upon the anatomy of the horse upon the 
skeletons of these animals. 

" But they differ in some important particulars. There is a 
difference in the structure of the fore and hind limb, and that 
difference consists in this, that the bones which are here repre- 
sented by two splints, imperfect below, are as long as the 
middle metacarpal bone, and that attached to the extremity of 
each is a small toe with its three joints of the same general 
character as the middle toe, only very much smaller, and so 
disposed that they could have had so very little importance 
that they must have been rather of the nature of the dew 
claws which are in ruminant animajs. This hipparion, or 
European horse, in fact, presents a foot similar to that which 
you see here represented, except that in the European hip- 
parion these smaller fingers are further back, and these lateral 
toes are of smaller proportional size. 

§ 47. " But nevertheless we have here a horse in which 
the lateral toes, almost abortive in the existing horse, are fully 
developed. On careful investigation you find in these animals 
that also in the fore limbs the ulna is very thin, yet is trace- 
able down to the extremity. In the hind limb you find 
that the fibula is pretty much as in the horse itself. This is 
the kind of equine animal which you meet with in these 
older pliocene formations, in which the modern horse is 
already or becomes entirely absent.* So you see that the 
hipparion is the form that immediately preceded the horse. 



* This looks like losing the line of descent. 



MODERN INFIDELITY AND SKEPTICISM. 39 



§ 48. " Now let us go a step further back [illustrating] to 
these which are called the miocene formations, and which 
constitute the middle part of the deposits of the tertiary 
epoch. There you find in some parts of Europe, — in Ger- 
many, Central Germany, in France, and in Greece, — there you 
find equine animals which differ essentially from the modern 
horse ; all that they resemble the horse is in the broad features 
of their organization.* They differ still further in the char- 
acters of their fore and hind limbs, and present important 
features of difference in their teeth. The forms to which I 
now refer are what are known to constitute the genus Anchi- 
therium [illustrating]. We have there three toes, and the 
middle toe is smaller in proportion, the lower toes are longer, 
and in fact large enough to rest upon the ground, and to have 
dew claws, but an animal with three functional toes. And in 
the fore arm you find the ulna a very distinct bone, quite 
readily distinguishable in its whole length from the radius, 
but still pretty closely united with it. In the hind limb you 
also meet with three functional toes. There is the same 
structure in the hipparion's hind limb that there was in the 
case of the anchitherium, and in the hind leg the fibula is 
longer. In some cases I have reason to think that it is com- 
plete ; at any rate, this lower end of it [illustrating] is quite 
distinctly recognizable as a separable though not exactly 
separated piece of bone. 

§ 49. " But the most curious change is that which is to be 
found in the character of the teeth. The teeth of the an- 
chitherium have in the first place, so far as the incisors are 
concerned, a more rudimentary pit ; the pit is vastly smaller in 
the horse. The canine teeth are present in both sexes. The 
molars are short : there is no cement, and the pattern is some- 
what like this [drawing on the blackboard]. There are two 



* This also looks like losing the line of descent. 



40 



A BLOW AT THE ROOT OF 



crescents, and two oblique ridges ; while in the lower jaw you 
have the double crescent and a very slight complication of the 
extremity. It is quite obvious that this [illustrating from 
drawing] is a simpler form than that. By increasing the 
complexity of these teeth there we have the horse's teeth. 
These are all the forms with which we are acquainted respect- 
ing the past history of the horse in -Europe. 

§ 50. a When I happened to occupy myself with this subject 
there was some difficulty in tracing them, but they left no 
doubt upon my mind that we had here a genuine record of the 
history of the evolution of the horse. You must understand 
that every one of these forms in time has undoubtedly be- 
come modified into various species and the like, and we cannot 
be absolutely certain that we have the exact line of modifica- 
tion but it was perfectly obvious that we had here in succes- 
sion, in time, three forms, fundamentally modified, in the 
horse type, of which the oldest came nearer to the general 
mammal — was far less modified — than the hipparion and what 
had taken place afterward.'' 

§ 51. " The evidence," says Professor Huxley, " which 
Professor Marsh has collected tends to show that you have in 
America the true original seat of the equine type, — the 
country in which the evidence of the primitive life and modi- 
fication of the horse is far better preserved than in Europe ; 
and Professor Marsh's kindness has enabled me to put 
before you this diagram [§ 45], every figure in which is 
an actual representation of a specimen which is preserved 
in New Haven at this present time. The successions of 
forms which he has brought together show, in the first 
place, the great care and patience to which I have referred. 
Secondly there is this pliocene form of the horse (Pliohippus) ; 
the conformation of its limbs presents some very slight devi- 



* This does not sound like demonstration. 



MODERN INFIDELITY AND SCEPTICISM. 41 



ations from the ordinary horse, and with shorter crown of 
grinding teeth. Then comes the form which represents the 
European hipparion, which is the Protohippus, having three toes 
and the fore-arm and leg and teeth to which I have referred, 
and which is more valuable than the European hipparion for 
this reason, it is devoid of some of the peculiarities of that 
form, peculiarities which tend to show that the European hip- 
parion is rather a side branch than one of the direct line of 
descent. But next comes the Miohippus, which corresponds 
pretty nearly with what is mentioned as the anchitherium of 
Europe, but which has some interesting peculiarities. It 
presents three toes, — one large one and two lateral ones, — and 
the fourth toe, which answers to the little finger of the human 
hand ; but there is only a rudiment of this, as in the lateral 
toe of the horse. This is, however, as far as European de- 
posits have been enabled to carry us with any degree of cer- 
tainty in the history of the horse [that is, the Miohippus or 
miocene, which is the middle division of the tertiary strata]. 
In this American tertiary, on the contrary, the series is con- 
tinued evenly down to the bottom* of the eocene, and these 
older rocks yield these remains. The miocene form termed 
Mesohippus has three toes in front and a large splint for 
the rudiment representing the little finger, and three toes be- 
hind. The radius and ulna are entire, and the tibia and fib- 
ula distinct, and there are simply anchitheroid short crowned 
teeth. 

§ 52. " But this is probably the most important discovery 
of all, — the Orohippus, — which comes from the oldest part of 
the eocene formation, 1 and is the oldest one known. 1 Here 
we have the four toes on the front limb complete, a well-devel- 
oped ulna, a well-developed fibula, and the teeth of simple 
pattern. So you are able, thanks to these great researches, to 



* See note on page 42. 
4* 



42 



A BLOW AT THE BOOT OF 



show that, so far as present knowledge extends, 1 the history of 
the horse-type is exactly and precisely that which would have 
been predicted from a knowledge of the principles of evolution. 
And the knowledge we now possess justifies us completely in 
the anticipation 2 that when the still lower* eocene deposits 3 
and those which belong to the cretaceous epoch 3 have 
yielded up their remains, we shall find first an equine creature 
with four* toes in front and a rudiment of the thumb, and 
then probably 5 a rudiment of the fifth toe will be gradually 
supplied, 6 until we come to the five-toed animals, in which 
most assuredly the whole series took its origin. This is what 
I mean, ladies and gentlemen, by demonstrative evidence of 
evolution. An inductive hypothesis is said to be demon- 
strated when the facts are shown to be in entire accordance 
with it. If this is not scientific proof, there are no inductive 
conclusions which can be said to be scientific.' 5 See Tribune 
Extra, No. 36, pp. 32, 34. 

In the preceding presentation of Prof. Huxley's lecture on 
evolution, we have given copious extracts, because we do not 
profess to know much about horses' toes and claws, and we 
desire that the reader may have an opportunity to examine 
for himself and form his own judgment on the subject. And 
for the sake of brevity we will now sum up the matter by 
analyzing the conclusion of his argument in favor of evolu- 
tion as presented in § 52. 

Here Prof. Huxley, after stating that the Orohippus comes 
from the oldest part of the eocene formation 1 — the oldest one 
known 1 — so far as present knowledge extends, 1 etc., and after 
admitting that several toes are wanting, says that we are justi- 
fied in anticipating 2 that when the still lower eocene deposits 3 



* In one place the eocene is represented as well known down to the 
bottom; in the other, the still lower eocene has not yet yielded up its 
remains. 



MODERN INFIDELITY AND SCEPTICISM. 43 



and those which "belong to the cretaceous epoch, 3 — [regions 
of which he is confessedly ignorant, 1 ] — when they shall have 
yielded up their remains, we may anticipate finding first an 
equine creature with four 4 toes in front and a rudiment of the 
thumb, and then probably* a rudiment of the fifth toe 5 will 
be gradually supplied* until we come to the five-toed animals, 
in which the whole series took its origin. And then he 
calls this demonstrative evidence of evolution. Now, candid 
reader, is this really demonstrative evidence of the truth of 
the doctrine of evolution ? 



44 



A BLOW AT THE ROOT OF 



§ 53. Having disposed of Prof. Huxley's arguments in 
favor of evolution, we now propose to prove by himself and 
his fellow-geologists that there really can be no such thing as 
evolution. 

In the course of his lectures in New York, he said, " The 
whole hypothesis of evolution supposes that in all this vast 
progression there would be no breach of continuity, no point 
at which we could say, ( this is a natural process' and i this 
is not a natural process,' but that the whole might be strictly 
compared to that wonderful series of changes which may be 
seen going on every day under our eye, in virtue of which 
there arises out of that semi-fluid homogeneous substance 
which we call an egg the complicated organization of one of 
the higher animals. That, in a few words, is what is meant 
by the hypothesis of evolution." Again he said, " We meet 
as we go back in time with constant alternations of sea and 
land, of estuary and open sea, and in correspondence with 
these alternations we meet with changes in the fauna and the 
flora of the kind I have stated. But none of these gives us 
any right to believe, no inspection of these changes gives us 
the slightest right to believe, that there has been any discon- 
tinuity in natural process. There is no trace of cataclysm, 
of great sweeping deluges, of sudden destruction of organic 
life," etc. 

And near the close of his third lecture, while claiming that 
he had demonstrated the doctrine of evolution, he said, " As 
I mentioned just now, the only way of escape, if it be a way 
of escape, from the conclusions which I have just indicated, is 
the supposition that all these different forms have been created 
separately at separate epochs of time ; and I repeat, as I said 
before, that of such a hypothesis there neither is nor can be 
any scientific evidence, and assuredly, so far as I know, there 
is none which is supported, or pretends to be supported, by 
evidence or authority of any other kind." See Trib. Extra, No. 



MODERN INFIDELITY AND SCEPTICISM. 45 



36, pp. 16, 21, 34. In short, Prof. Huxley positively asserts 
that either a breach of continuity or a disturbance in the course 
of nature would as effectually destroy evolution as it would in 
incubation destroy the hatching of chickens ; that we have 
no right to believe that there has been any discontinuity in 
natural process ; that there is no trace of cataclysm, of sweep- 
ing deluges, or of sudden destruction of organic life ; and 
that there is, most assuredly, no scientific evidence that all 
these different forms have been created separately at separate 
epochs of time. 

§ 54. But Rev. B. F. Hosford, Haverhill, Mass., says, 
" No ruin could be more complete than that which ended the 
carboniferous era. It was universal and utter. All the lux- 
uriant vegetation which clothed the earth with a wreath of 
beauty was swept off, and hardly a species of the numerous 
animals which had swum in its tepid lakes, or browsed on the 
gigantic vegetation which overhung their banks, survived to 
see their strange but nobler successors." Bibl. Sac, No. 58, 
p. 302. 

Prof. Dana says, " We have abundantly illustrated this in 
our first article, where it is shown that destructions of life 
followed destructions ; creations, creations ; and thus the earth 
was in incessant changes. Twenty or more sweeping destruc- 
tions occurred (besides other partial ones) on this continent 
after the appearance of animal life (that is, through or during 
the fifth and sixth days of Genesis, and mostly the fifth), and 
a larger number in Europe." Bibl. Sac, No. 55, p. 482. 

And Prof. C. H. Hitchcock says, " Long ago Deshayes, a 
distinguished naturalist, declared that in surveying the entire 
series of fossil animal remains, he had discovered five great 
groups so completely independent that no species whatever is 
found in more than one of them." Adding the existing 
group, it makes six entire changes of inhabitants, which ac- 
cords with the palseontological classification which we have 



46 



A BLOW AT THE ROOT OF 



given, viz., the first reaching to the top of the Permian, the 
second embracing the Trias, the third the Oolite, the fourth 
the Chalk, and the fifth the Tertiary. 

But the ablest palaeontologists of the present day feel as if 
this were a very inadequate view of the subject, falling far 
short of the number of the changes in inhabitants which the 
earth has experienced. Says the late eminent palaeontologist, 
M. Alcide d'Orbigny, " A first creation took place in the 
Silurian stage. After that was annihilated by some geological 
cause, and after a considerable time, a second creation took 
place in the Devonian stage, and successively twenty-seven times 
have distinct creations re-peopled all the earth with plants and 
animals, following each time some geological disturbance 
which had totally destroyed living nature." (Elem. Geol., p* 
369.) It appears then, from these statements, that evolution 
is an impossibility. And the fact that such eminent geologists 
as Huxley and these others draw conclusions from the geo- 
logical records of strata, so directly opposite, proves the utter 
worthlessness of the system. 

§ 55. That Darwinism is founded on geological succession, 
geological periods, and chronological records of geological 
strata, cannot be denied by those who have examined his 
works. See " Origin of Species," pp. 432-436 ; " Descent of 
Man," vol. i. pp. 2, 32, 189, 192-196, vol. ii. pp. 290, 369, 
etc. In this pamphlet the diagram of the chronological records 
of geological strata used by Prof. Huxley in § 45 was fur- 
nished by Prof. Marsh (see § 51). And Prof. Marsh, in his 
address before the American Association of Science, Nash- 
ville, Tennessee, August 30, 1877, founds the doctrine of 
evolution entirely on the age of strata. See Daily American, 
August 31, 1877. And in §§ 39, 40, 42, Profs. Hitchcock 
and Dana and Rev. Dr. McCosh place the records in strata 
or rocks in direct opposition to the records in the Bible. 



MODERN INFIDELITY AND SCEPTICISM. 47 

And, as we have seen in §§ 7, 8, 13, 41, and 42, Prof. 
Huxley, relying upon the chronological records of strata as 
undoubted authority, contradicts the Bible. In §§ 15-17, 41, 
42, and 45-52 we find him with diagrams of strata placed 
before him as the infallible registers of time, and referring to 
them to prove his theories. And here, in the conclusion of 
his third lecture on evolution, Prof. Huxley, after informing 
his audience that some years ago he was the President of the 
Geological Society of London, said, u It is a matter of fact 
that these forms which I have described to you occur in the 
order which I have described to you in the tertiary formation. 
As a matter of fact the biologist has no means of arriving at 
any conclusion as to the amount of time which may be needed 
for a certain quantity of organic changes. He takes his facts 
as to time from the geologist. The geologist, taking into con- 
sideration the rate at which deposits are formed, and the rate 
at which denudation goes on upon the surface of the earth, 
arrives at certain conclusions more or less justifiable as to the 
time which is required for the deposit of a certain amount of 
rocks, and if he tells me that the tertiary formation required 
five hundred million years for its deposit, I suppose he has 
good ground for what he says, and I take that as the measure 
of duration of the evolution of the horse from the Orohippus 
up to its present condition." — Trib. Extra, No. 36, p. 35. 

It seems, then, that all the theories of modern scientific 
infidelity and scepticism are founded solely upon the age of 
strata, and that scientific scepticism can do nothing without 
the chronological records of geological strata. 



48 



A BLOW AT THE ROOT OF 



"Let them but be testimonied, 
And they ioill certainly convict themselves." 

§56. Now, if the reader please, we will endeavor to prove 
by the statements of geologists and scientists, including Prof, 
Huxley himself, that there neither are, nor can be, such chrono- 
logical formations of strata as they refer to in their diagrams 
in §§ 15, 39, 45, and 57, and that they neither do nor can 
know which is the oldest; therefore, all those speculations, 
hypotheses, and theories founded on the age of strata, and 
beyond or contrary to the Bible, are unworthy of any credence 
or confidence. 

§ 57. (a) " The original position and chronological records 
of strata. — The original position of strata is horizontal." — 
Dana. " Our most authentic information respecting the earth 
is derived from records which may be said to be inscribed upon 
and within its strata." — Emmons. " It has been explained 
that the strata are historical records of past conditions of the 
earth's surface ; the lowest strata belong to an early period of 
the world, and those above to a later period, in succession." — 
Dana. " In the stratified rocks the relative age of the dif- 
ferent groups is determined by their superposition, the lowest 
being the oldest." — E. Hitchcock. See also § 8. 

(c) Depth of strata examined, — " When geologists assert 
that the sedimentary rocks are from seven to ten miles in 
thickness, and must have consumed a period of time immeasur- 
ably great, their facts are called in question, and they themselves 
compared to 1 gnats on the back of an elephant/ who know 
about as much of the organism of this vast animal as they 
do of the constitution of the globe." — J. Jay Dana. u In 
New England, as, for instance, on the railroad between West- 
field and Pittsfield, we have strata of primary rocks, for the 
most part nearly perpendicular, not less than twenty miles in 
thickness." — E. Hitchcock. We here annex a diagram or 
table of stratified rocks, chronologically arranged by Prof. 



MODERN INFIDELITY AND SCEPTICISM. 49 
Table of Stratified Bocks, chronologically arranged. 




TERTIARY 
OR 

KAINOZOIC. 
ABOUT 

10,000 

FEET THICK. 



OO O 00*0 

o o o CHALK o o o o 

OqO Q oQ o oo 




120,000 feet. 
C 



22 miles cand 3840 feet. 
5 



120,000 feet. 



50 



A BLOW AT THE ROOT OF 



Molloy, which aggregates a depth of one hundred and twenty 
thousand feet, or twenty-two miles and three thousand eight 
hundred and forty feet. " In the peninsula of Tauris," says 
Sir Charles Lyell, " Pallas describes a continued series of 
primary strata inclined 45° over a distance of eighty-six 
miles, which would be a perpendicular thickness of sixty- 
eight miles." 

But the following statements of Humboldt show that geolo- 
gists and scientists do not know anything about what is ten 
miles, twenty miles, twenty-two miles and three thousand eight 
hundred and forty feet, or sixty-eight miles below the surface 
of the sea. 

(c) " In speaking of the greatest depths within the earth 
reached by human labor, we must recollect that there is a dif- 
ference between the absolute depth (that is to say, the depth 
below the earth's surface at that point) and the relative depth 
(or that beneath the level of the sea). The greatest relative 
depth that man has hitherto reached is probably the bore at 
the new salt-works at Minden, in Prussia; in June, 1844, it 
was exactly one thousand nine hundred and ninety-three feet,* 
the absolute depth being two thousand two hundred and thirty- 
one feet. All that lies at a greater depth below the level of 
the sea than the shafts or basins of which I have spoken, the 
limits to which man's labors have penetrated, or than the 
depth to which the sea has in some few instances been sounded, 
is as much unknown to us as the interior of the other planets 
of our solar system. (See "Cosmos," vol. i. pp. 148, 151.) 
Therefore, the assertions of geologists and scientists about geo- 
logical strata containing chronological records of time, at a 
depth of ten, twenty, twenty -three, or sixty-eight miles below 
the surface of the sea, are wholly gratuitous, for they neither 
do nor can know anything about them. 



* The well at Pesth is now (1878) more than three thousand feet deep. 
— A utJtor, 



MODERN INFIDELITY AND SCEPTICISM. 51 



§ 58. Again, metamorphism sometimes takes place on or 
near the surface of the earth ; and it is invariably effected at 
a depth of five thousand nine hundred and sixty-two feet, or 
a little over a mile ; therefore it is impossible that strata, 
marking distinct and different periods of time, should be 
formed at a depth of ten, twenty, twenty-three, or sixty-eight 
miles. 

(d) The progress of metamorphism is still going on. — " We 
see it more strikingly at the surface, especially in regions that 
have not experienced the erosion of the drift agency. There 
the rocks are manifestly changed, often to the depth of several 
feet. But when we open the solid rocks, or descend into the 
deepest mines, we shall find minerals undergoing alteration, 
new ones taking the place of old ones. Wherever water pene- 
trates, even though the temperature be not raised, we may 
expect metamorphism. Indeed, Bischoff, whose great work on 
Chemical Geology forms almost a new era in geology, regards 
these changes as universal. 6 All rocks,' says he, ' are con- 
tinually subject to alteration, and their sound appearance is not 
any indication that alteration has not taken place." (Vol. iii. 
p. 426.) " If it be so, it shows us how wide and difficult is 
the field which lies open for geological research." C. H. 
Hitchcock, Elem. Geol., p. 225. 

Dr. MacCulloch says he has completely proved by experi- 
ments that every metal can completely change its crystalline 
arrangements while solid, and many of them at very low tem- 
peratures. See " Syst. Geol.," vol. i. p. 190. 

" Moreover," says Prof. Dana, "where the heat was above 
212° Fahr., or the boiling-point of water, as it probably has 
been in most cases of metamorphic changes, all of it has passed 
into what is called a superheated state, and in this state it has 
great power of dissolving and decomposing minerals and pro- 
moting new combinations and crystallizations." — Text-Book, 
p. 314. And in the Edinburgh Journal of Science, April, 



52 



A BLOW AT THE BOOT OF 



1832, it is said, " The increase of temperature from the sur- 
face of the earth downwards does not appear to be at the 
same rate in all countries. The average increase for all the 
countries where observations have been made, is stated by 
KupfFer to be 36,81 feet for each degree. 

(e) " At this rate, and assuming the temperature of the 
surface to be 50° Fahr., a heat sufficient to boil water would 
be reached at a depth of five thousand nine hundred and sixty- 
two feet, or a little more than a mile, and a heat of 700°, suf- 
ficient to melt all known rocks, would be reached at forty-eight 
miles." See Cordier's Essay " Temp. Inter. Earth," p. 73 ; 
" Moffat's Scientific Class-Book," vol. ii. p. 311 ; E. Hitchcock, 
" Elem. G-eol.," p. 249. And Prof. Dana says, " There is good 
reason for believing, also, that, not many scores of miles below 
the surface, the whole interior of the globe is in a melted state." 
Dana, "Text-Book," p. 1. 

Then, these men contradict themselves, and show that it is 
impossible to form distinct, legible strata at a depth of more 
than a little over a mile, perpendicular, instead of sixty-eight. 

§ 59. But if such strata could be formed, they never could 
be raised up from the original horizontal position [see (a) 
§ 57], so that men could read them. 

(/) " It is stated on page 1, that a thickness of rock equal 
to fifteen or eighteen miles is open to the geological explorer. 
This would not be true were all the strata in their original 
horizontal position ; for the most that would in that case be 
within reach would not exceed the height of the highest 
mountain. But the upturning which the earth's crust has 
undergone has brought the edges of strata to the surface, 
and there is hence no such limit ; however deep stratified 
beds may extend, there is no reason why the whole should not 
be brought up so as to be exposed to view in some parts of 
the earth's surface." Dana, " Text-Book," p. 39. 

" In some instances the strata have been folded together on 



MODERN INFIDELITY AND SCEPTICISM. 



53 



a vast scale, and in such a manner as to bring some of the 
newer rocks beneath the older. Fig. 7 is a section of this 



" Fig. 7. 




Folded axis. 



character. Originally the strata were probably folded, as is 
shown by the curved lines passing from 1 to 1, 2 to 2, and so 
on. But their upper parts have been denuded, so that the 
present surface is a, a. The oldest strata are now found to be 
6, 6, and they correspond outward on each side of these, as 5, 5, 
4, 4, etc. Such an example as this has been called a folded 
axis. I have no small reason to believe that a similar fold- 
ing and overturning of the strata have taken place on a vast 
scale in the United States." E. Hitchcock, " Elem. Geol.," 
p. 35 ; and C. H. Hitchcock, " Elem. Geol.," p. 21. 

" The outlining of mountain-ridges and valleys," says Prof. 
Dana, " has been in part produced by subterranean forces up- 
turning and fracturing the strata ; but the final shaping of 
heights is due to erosion. This cause has been in action from 
the earliest times, and the material of nearly all rocks not 
calcareous has resulted from the erosion of pre-existing for- 
mations. The Appalachians have probably lost by denudation 
more material than they now contain. Mention lias been 
made of faults of even twenty thousand feet along the course 
of the chain from . Canada to Alabama (p. 156), In such a 

5* 



54 



A BLOW AT THE HOOT OF 



fault, one side is left standing twenty thousand feet above the 
other, equivalent in height to some of the loftier mountains 
of the globe ; and yet now the whole is so levelled off that 
there is no evidence* of the fault in the surface features of 
the country." " Text-Book," p. 298. 

But these very same men, Profs. Hitchcock and Dana, tell 
us that there is no power in nature known that is sufficient 
to raise, fold, and hold up strata ten, twenty, twenty-three, or 
sixty-eight miles above the surface of the earth. 

G?) § 60. " The most extensive elevation of land on record 
by means of earthquakes took place on the western coast of 
South America in 1822. The shock was felt twelve hundred 
miles along the coast, and for more than one hundred miles 
the coast was elevated from three to four feet, and it is con- 
jectured that an area of one hundred thousand square miles was 
thus raised up. This case, originally noticed by Mrs. Graham, 
and subsequently by Dr. Meyen and Mr. Prayer, has excited 
a great deal of discussion among European geologists ; nor can 
it yet be regarded as absolutely settled, for Mr. Gumming, an 
able naturalist, who resided at Valparaiso at the time of the 
earthquake (whose greatest power was exhibited there), says 
that the spring tides rose to the same height upon a wall near 
his house, after the event as before." (Lyell's " Prin. Geol.," 
vol. ii. p. 302.) " In estimating the permanent effects of earth- 
quakes, it ought to be recollected that the changes of level 
which they produce often balance one another, after the lapse 
of a few months or years." E. Hitchcock, " Elem. Geol.," 
p. 296. 

" Vapors suddenly evolved beneath some portion of the eartlis 
crust. This cause has been commonly regarded as of the 
highest importance, especially with reference to the elevation 



* If there is no evidence, how is it known, or how was it eroded above 
the snow-line? See § 6,1, 



MODERN INFIDELITY AND SCEPTICISM. 55 



of mountains. There are two difficulties with regard to it. 
(1) No open cavities of sufficient extent for the purpose can 
be proved to exist beneath mountains where such vapors 
could spread and act. (2) If the explosion were to take place, 
as, for example, beneath the Andes, the mountains would not 
stay upon a mere bed of condensable vapors ; they are very heavy 
and require solid support." Dana, " Text-Book," p. 319. 

We see, then, that there is no power known in nature that 
could raise up, fold, and hold up strata ten, twenty, twenty- 
three, or sixty-eight miles, and we know that strata could not 
be stretched as is represented in " Fig. 7," § 59. 

§ 61. "Height above the ocean. The temperature of the air 
diminishes 1° Fahr. for 300 feet of altitude; 2° for 595 feet; 
3° for 872 feet; 4° for 1124 feet; 5° for 1347 feet; and 6° 
for 1539 feet. Hence, at the equator, perpetual frost exists at 
the height of 15,000 feet, diminishing to 13,000 feet at either 
tropic. Between latitudes 40° and 59° it varies from 9000 to 
4000 feet. In almost every part of the frigid zone this line 
descends to the surface. These results, however, are greatly 
modified by several circumstances ; so that, in fact, the line 
of perpetual congelation is not a regular curve, but rather an 
irregular line, descending and ascending." See American 
Journal of Science, vol. xxxiii. p. 52 ; " Introduction a la 
Geographie Mathem. et Phys.," par S. F. Lacroix, p. 289 ; 
E. Hitchcock, " Elem. Geol.," p. 246. 

Then, if strata could be raised and held up as represented 
in Fig. 7, § 59, they could not be eroded or washed off to 
the line a a, because there would be more than seven, seven- 
teen, twenty, or sixty-five miles above the line of perpetual 
congelation, and frozen so that it could not be washed off or 
denuded. 

§ 62. But if strata could be formed sixty-eight miles below 
the surface of the earth, raised and held up, and eroded or 
washed off to the line a, a, as represented in Fig. 7, § 59, 



56 



A BLOW AT THE ROOT OF 



so that geologists could examine their stub ends, they could not 
tell which stratum is the oldest. 

(A) " Numerous attempts have been made to classify the 
rocks. But none of the arrangements hitherto proposed pos- 
sess so decided a superiority over the others as to be adopted 
in every particular." (E. Hitchcock, " Elem. Geol.," p. 34.) 
Again, he says, " It is not possible in geology, as in other de- 
partments of natural history, to describe species with definite 
and invariable characters ; because each rock is found to be 
made up of varieties, often very numerous, which insensibly 
graduate into one another, as do also the rocks themselves in 
many instances." (p. 31.) And the chemical analysis of a 
piece of rotten limestone at Jones' Bluff", Alabama, as given 
by Prof. Mallet, showed twelve varieties of material in its 
composition. See Prof. Tuomey's " Geological Beport on Ala- 
bama," p. 187. 

And Prof. Dana says, " The strata of the same period or 
time, called equivalent strata, because equivalent in age, differ 
even on the same continent. Sandstones and shales were often 
forming along the Appalachians in Pennsylvania and Virginia 
when limestones were in progress over the Mississippi Valley. 
When rocks have been forming in one region, there have been 
none in progress in many others. Hence the series of strata, 
serving as records of geological events, is nowhere perfect. 

" The strata in many regions have been displaced, folded, 
fractured, faulted, and even crystallized extensively, adding 
greatly to the difficulties of the geological explorer. Bocks 
made at the very same time may be widely different ; and, 
conversely, those made in very different periods may look pre- 
cisely alike in color and texture." See " Text-Book," pp. 
44, 45. 

(i) § 63. Again, Prof. Dana says, " Fossils afford the best 
means of determining identity. This is so because of the fact 
already mentioned, the fossils of an epoch are very similar in 



MODERN INFIDELITY AND SCEPTICISM. 



57 



genera, if not in species, the world over ; and those of different 
epochs are different." (" Text-Book," p. 45.) But others say, 
" If we compare the same formation in different countries, the 
specific resemblance between the organic contents will diminish 
nearly in the inverse ratio of the distance between them." 
(Phillips' "Treatise on Geology," from Encyc. Brit., p. 52.) 
" Example : in Egypt the cretaceous rocks contain different 
fossils from the chalk of England ; and the same is true of the 
chalky rocks on the southern face of the Alps. More than a 
hundred species of organic relics have been described in the 
rocks of the United States which are supposed to correspond 
with the chalk formation in Europe ; yet only two or three 
species are identical." (Morton's " Synopsis Organic Remains," 
p. 83 ; Phillips' Geology, p. 156.) " Judging from the 
distribution of living animals and plants, contemporaneous 
formations in widely-separated portions of the globe may con- 
tain organic remains very much alike, or very much unlike. 
Rocks agreeing in their fossil contents may not have been 
contemporaneous in their deposition." See E. Hitchcock, 
"Elem. Geol.," p. 90. 

" Currents of the Bosporus. — It is rather remarkable that 
while a strong central current from the Black Sea to the Sea 
of Marmora prevails on the surface, there are two counter- 
currents along the shores, carrying the heavier and more salt 
water of the Mediterranean into the Black Sea, and thus main- 
taining a uniform degree of saltness." — J. D. O Conner, 

Mr. Southall says, " The deep-sea explorations of Prof. Wy- 
ville Thomson and Dr. Carpenter have made the astounding 
revelation that if the sea-bottom at certain points of observation 
in the North Atlantic should become dry land, ' we should find 
two very different looking deposits, containing two series of re- 
mains, really contemporaneous, but indicating such difference 
of conditions that our present geological theories would lead us 
to class them as belonging to successive periods, sufficiently sepa- 



53 



A BLOW AT THE BOOT OF 



rated to allow of climatic changes. ' " This is due to the fact 
that at such points (north of Scotland and the Faroe Islands), 
at the depth of six hundred fathoms, Dr. Carpenter found con- 
tiguous currents with varying temperatures, the one ranging 
from 32° to 33° Fahr., and the other being not less than 47° 
Fahr. These neighboring currents presented naturally a dif- 
ference of fauna, the living things in the cold area being of a 
different type from and less abundant than those of the warm 
area. How far this discovery will unsettle a fundamental 
principle in modern geology does not yet appear ; it seems to 
us that it ought at least to beget a spirit of extreme caution 
and diffidence among geologists, for it is really like the explo- 
sion of a bomb in the laboratory of a chemist." — Recent 
Origin of Man," p. 57. 

(k) § 64. And Prof. Huxley himself says, " It is with jus- 
tice that the most thoughtful of those who are concerned in 
these inquiries insist continually upon the imperfection of the 
geological record. I repeat, it is absolutely necessary, from the 
nature of things, that the record should be of the most frag- 
mentary and imperfect character. Unfortunately this circum- 
stance has been constantly forgotten. Men of science, like 
young colts in a fresh pasture, are apt to be exhilarated on 
being turned into a new field of inquiry, and to go off at a 
hand-gallop, in total disregard of hedges and ditches, losing 
sight of the real limitation of their inquiries, and to forget 
the extreme imperfection of what is really known. Geologists 
have imagined that they could tell us what was going on at 
all ' parts of the earth's surface during a given epoch ; they 
have talked of this deposit being contemporaneous with that 
deposit, until, from our little local histories of the changes at 
limited spots of the earth's surface, they have constructed a 
universal history of the globe as full of wonders and portents 
as any other story of antiquity." Again he says, " You must 
take into consideration the fact that we have not the slightest 



MODERN INFIDELITY AND SCEPTICISM. 59 



proof that these [strata] which we call the oldest beds are 
really so. I repeat, we have not the slightest proof of it." — 
" Origin of Species," pp. 38, 39, and 68. This is proof 
positive that geologists really know nothing about the age of 
strata. 

Recapitulation. — 1. The original position and chronological 
records of strata stated, § 57 (a). 

2. Depth of strata claimed, ten, twenty, twenty-three, and 
sixty-eight miles, § 57 (b). Depth reached by the bore of an 
artesian auger, nineteen hundred and ninety-three feet. All 
below that unknown and unknowable, § 57 (c). First impos- 
sibility. 

3. Strata cannot be formed more than five thousand nine 
hundred and sixty-two feet, or a little more than a mile, below 
the surface of the sea, § 58 (d), (e). Second impossibility. . 

4. If strata could be formed as represented in § 59 (/), 
they never could be stretched, raised, and held up as repre- 
sented in § 60 (y). Third impossibility. 

5. If strata could be stretched, raised, and held up, as rep- 
resented in Fig. 7, § 59, they could not be eroded or washed 
off to the line a, a, so that they could be examined, § 61. 
Fourth impossibility. 

6. And if strata could be formed sixty-eight miles below 
the surface of the sea, stretched, raised, and held up, and 
eroded or washed off to the line a, a, as represented in Fig. 7, 
§ 59, so that geologists could examine their stub ends, it would 
be i?npossible for them to tell which was the oldest stratum, § 62 
(A), § 63 (t). Fifth impossibility. 

Here, then, geologists and scientists acknowledge that there 
is at least a five-fold impossibility in the way of forming a 
chronological record of geological strata. And Prof. Huxley 
himself asserts, positively, that geologists really have no proof 
of the age of strata. § 64 (7c). 

We conclude, therefore, from these facts, that all those who 



CO MODERN INFIDELITY AND SCEPTICISM. 



have gone out beyond the historical records of the Bible, on 
geological records of strata, either at Whiston's orthodox gap 
(see § 33), or at Hutton's infidel or atheistical gap (see § 34), 
geologists, scientists, biologists, all, according to the summing 
up of their own statements in the case, are left upon a baseless 
fabric, built upon their own foolish imaginations ; and these 
facts and this conclusion defy refutation. 



PROSPECTUS FOR PUBLISHING MORROW'S 
THESAURUS. 



Morrow's Thesaurus. — Containing a Collection of Facts 
on Geology, Darwinism, the Bible, and Modern Scep- 
ticism, with Appendix A, Appendix B, Appendix C, and 
Appendix D. By Thomas Morrow, Y.D.M., Cottage Home, 
Alabama. And an Introduction by Kev. K. L. Dabney, 
D.D., LL.D., Professor of Systematic and Pastoral Theology, 
and Key. B. M. Smith, D.D., Professor of Oriental Literature, 
Union Theological Seminary, Hampden Sidney, Virginia. 
This work more clearly expounds the Mosaic Narrative of 
Creation, more thoroughly ferrets out and refutes the innuendoes 
and oppositions of science, falsely so called, against the Bible, 
and more completely defends the Sacred Scriptures, in all their 
details, than any other book in the world of its size : hence it 
may very properly be called Thesaurus, or, a Treasury. 

BKIEF SYNOPSIS OF CONTENTS. 

Introduction by Eev. Drs. Dabney and Smith, Professors in 
Union Theological Seminary, Virginia. 

In Part I. it is clearly shown that all the theories advocating 
long, indefinite days or periods of time in the work of creation 
are anti-scriptural, and that the statements and teachings of sci- 
entists and geologists, especially in regard to the antiquity of 
man, do most positively and unequivocally contradict the Bible. 

In Part II., while economical geology is freely admitted to 
be a true and useful science, it is proved by the statements and 
teachings of geologists themselves (1) That the thing which is 

i 



ii 



PROSPECTUS FOR PUBLISHING 



commonly called the science of geology is not an exact, but specu- 
lative science, founded upon contradictory suppositions, hypo- 
theses, and theories, which change with the times, and therefore, 
as a science, it is unworthy of credence or confidence ; and (2) 
That both it and Darwinism are unsustained by the principles 
alleged to underlie them, and that they are, indeed, mere suppo- 
sitions, set forth on other and less rational suppositions, the whole 
constituting rather ridiculous, though splendid, nonsense. 

In Part III. it is demonstrated by many circumstantial, cor- 
roborative, and positive testimonies, chiefly drawn from heathen 
authors, inscriptions, and monuments, that the Bible is true and 
worthy of the most implicit credence and confidence. This de- 
partment contains an unusual amount of evidence of more than 
ordinary value in favor of the truth of the Christian religion. 

APPENDICES. 

(1) Appendix A. On the Catacombs of Kome, proving the 
existence of Christianity and the circulation of the Sacred Scrip- 
tures at an early period. 

(2) Appendix B. On the Origin and Universal Obligation of 
the Sabbath. 

(3) Appendix C. Suggestions on Long and Short Periods ; 
Formation of Coal-Beds, Deltas, etc. 

(4) Appendix D. Strictures on Infidel and Atheistical Theo- 
ries, etc. 

TESTIMONIALS. 

Kev. Drs. K. L. Dabney, B. M. Smith, and Thomas E. Peck, 
Professors in Union Theological Seminary, Virginia, and Kev. 
Dr. J. M. P. Atkinson, President of Hampden Sidney College, 
Virginia, say : 

" We have examined the MS. of the Kev. Thomas Morrow, on 
the relations of physical science, and especially of geology, to the 
Bible, as time allowed us, and we have been much pleased with 
the contents. The work exhibits evidently much research, learn- 
ing, and labor. The collection of human testimonies to the 
facts of the Pentateuch and other Scriptures is most interesting. 
Without attempting to correct or indorse the special theory of 
geology intimated in Mr. Morrow's work, for neither of which 



MORROW'S THESAURUS. 



iii 



tasks we claim competency, we believe that lie has made a vlau- 
able contribution to the Christian evidences." 

Kev. E. 0. Frierson,* Pastor of the Presbyterian Church Flor- 
ence, Alabama, says : 

" I have read with pleasure and profit the MS. of a work by 
Kev. Thomas Morrow, on Geology and the Bible, and take pleas- 
ure, in saying that it is a work evincing sound scholarship, ex- 
tensive research, an enlightened appreciation of the issues between 
science and religion, and contains most valuable corroborative 
testimonies to the truth of the Sacred Scriptures. Its circulation 
cannot fail to strengthen the faith of God's people in the inspira- 
tion of the Bible." 

Kev. Alexander Penland, Evangelist of the Presbytery of 
Tuscumbia, says : 

"I also have had the pleasure and profit of reading a large 
portion of Mr. Morrow's MS., and I most cordially indorse the 
sentiments expressed by Kev. E. O. Frierson in regard to it, and 
if I had a thousand dollars I would freely give them to have it 
published.'' 

Colonel J. W. Sloss, President of the South and North Ala- 
bama Kailroad Company, in a letter to Kev. Dr. Kedford, Agent 
of the Southern Methodist Publishing House, Nashville, Ten- 
nessee, says : 

£< Dear Sir, — This will introduce to your acquaintance Dr. 
Thomas Morrow, of Morgan County, Alabama, who visits your 
city on business with your publishing house. Dr. Morrow is a 
Presbyterian clergyman of high standing, and is worthy of your 
entire confidence and esteem. I have known him for many years, 
and admire him for his learning and high Christian character 
and integrity. Will you do me the kindness to extend to him 
cordially your confidence, and aid him to the extent of your 
ability in his enterprise? Please, if you have the opportunity, 
introduce him to Bishop McTyeire, Dr. Summers, and Dr. J. B. 
McFerrin, as one of my warmest friends." 

Kev. John N. Blackburn, a venerable member of the Presby- 
tery of North Alabama, in a note to the author, says : 

" I am glad to hear that your book is ready for the publishers. 
I regard it as a great river that shall flow from your earthly 



* Now of Nashville, Tenn. 



iv 



PROSPECTUS FOR PUBLISHING 



labors. I am anxious that it should be published before I 
go hence and be no more with men. I want to live to read it 
myself, and to leave a copy of it in the libraries of all my 
children." 

Eev. Dr. Thomas 0. Summers, Professor of Systematic Theol- 
ogy in the Vanderbilt University, Nashville, Tennessee, says : 

" My dear Sir, — From the cursory examination which I have 
been able to give your MS., I do not hesitate to agree with Drs. 
Dabney, Smith, and others, in expressing a desire to see it in 
print. I think it will be a valuable contribution to our theo- 
logical literature. I admire the candor with which you state 
the views of those from whom you differ, and the learning with 
which you set forth and defend your own. I sincerely hope that 
your work will soon be published, and that it will have a wide 
circulation. 

u I have shown your MS. to Dr. Shipp. He says he has not time 
to give it such an examination as would make his opinion worth 
anything, but joins with me in a desire to see it published. Your 
reputation and that of those who commend the work are suffi- 
cient. I hope you will publish it at no distant day." 

General George D. Johnston, General Deputy and Lecturer of 
Alabama State Grange, says : 

"My Honored Old Friend, — While I have not critically 
examined, I have read, or heard you read, nearly the entire MS. 
of your 'Thesaurus,' and take pleasure in commending it as in 
my judgment a most interesting and valuable contribution to 
biblical literature. You have handled the theories of modern 
rationalism without gloves, and have left an impression wher- 
ever you have delivered a blow. It is opportune that you directed 
your abilities, scholarship, and labors to the preparation of this 
work at this juncture, when the Divine Word is being so bitterly 
assailed by heresy dignifying itself with the name of science. I 
hope to see your work in print at an early day, and shall gladly 
add it to my library." 

Professor J. B. McClellan, a graduate of the University of Vir- 
ginia, and a Professor in the High School at Trinity, Alabama, 
says : 

" I have read your MS. with care and interest. No one can 
finish it without being convinced of the truth of your hypothesis, 
namely, the thoroughly speculative character of geology as a 



MORROW'S THESAURUS. 



v 



science, and without feeling his faith in all that is contained in 
the Bible immeasurably increased. God speed you in its early 
publication !" 

Kev. John S. Erierson, Evangelist of the Presbytery of North 
Alabama, says : 

11 Having given your MS. a careful reading, I cannot but believe 
it will do good, as I have felt the reading of it has benefited me. 
It satisfies my mind that the theories of geologists and modern 
scientists are wrong, and gives an able refutation of their teach- 
ings. And especially do I think that Part III. is well calculated 
to establish every believer more firmly in his love for the Bible, 
and satisfy every unbeliever, not blinded by sin and prejudice, that 
it is God's word. In short, I esteem the whole work as a very 
valuable and able contribution to our religious literature." 

" On motion, the following paper was adopted on Brother 
Thomas Morrow's unpublished works: 

tl We, the members of the Presbytery of North Alabama, 
being met in session at Palmyra Church, and being well informed 
of the contents of 1 Morrow's Thesaurus' and ' A Blow at the 
Root of Modern Infidelity and Scepticism,' etc., now in MS. and 
ready for publication, and believing that these works of our 
brother Presbyter thoroughly expose the errors and false prin- 
ciples taught by geologists and scientists in opposition to the 
Bible, and that they fully and clearly establish the truth and 
inspiration of the Sacred Scriptures, do most cheerfully and 
earnestly recommend them to the confidence and liberal patron- 
age of the friends of the Bible. 

" J. B. LORANCE, S. C." 



TERMS. 

Morrow's "Thesaurus." Containing about 396 pages 12mo, 
with Illustrative Diagrams, Charts, etc. Cloth. Single copy, 
$1.75; five copies, $1.60 each; twenty-five copies, $1.45 each; 
fifty copies, $1.30 each ; one hundred copies, $1.15 each. 

As this work is to be published by subscription, and the special 
object of it is the vindication of the Scriptures, it is hoped that 
the friends of the Bible will cheerfully act as agents. 



vi 



PROSPECTUS FOR PUBLISHING 



The names of subscribers may be sent to Rev. Drs. B. M 
Smith and J. M. P. Atkinson, Hampden Sidney, Va. ; Rev. Dr. 
T. 0. Summers and Rev. E. O.Frierson, Nashville, Tenn. ; Rev. 
Dr. J. A. Lyon and Chancellor A. P. Stewart, Oxford, Miss. ; Rev. 
Drs. G. Howe and J. Woodrow, Columbia, S. C. ; Rev. Drs. 
J. L. Halsey and F. L. Patton, Chicago, 111. ; Rev. Dr. W. A. 
Scott, San Francisco, Cal. ; Rev. Dr. Charles Hodge and Prof. J. T. 
Duffield, Princeton, 1ST. J. ; Rev. Dr. J. R. Wilson, Wilmington, 
N. C. ; Rev. Dr. H. M. Field, Editor New York Evangelist; 
Editors Christian Observer, Louisville, Ky. ; Rev. Dr. H. A. 
Boardman, Philadelphia, Pa. ; Dr. W. H. Allen, Pres. American 
Bible Society, New York; Editors New York Observer; Inde- 
pendent, New York ; The Religious Newspaper Agency, 21 Bar- 
clay Street, New York ; Rev. A. Shotwell, St. Louis. Mo. : Rev. 
Dr. R. F. Bunting, Galveston, Tex. ; Rev. Drs. B. M. Palmer and 
H. M. Smith, New Orleans, La. ; Rev. John S. Frierson, Deca- 
.tur, Alabama ; Rev. Drs. M. D. Hoge and W. Brown, Rich- 
mond, Ya. ; Rev. Dr. Leonard Bacon, New Haven, Conn. : Rev. 
Dr. Howard Crosby, New York ; Rev. Dr. E. D. Morris, Cincin- 
nati, Ohio ; General John D. Rather, Tuscumbia, Ala. ; President 
Chadbourne, Williams College, Mass. ; Prof. George P. Fisher, 
Theological Department of Yale College ; Rev. Dr. J. W. Pratt, 
Richmond, Ky. ; Rev. Dr. Thos. Brown, Edinburgh, Scotland ; 
Rev. Dr. Robert Knox, Belfast, Ireland; Rev. Dr. Grier, editor 
Philadelphia Presbyterian; Rev. Dr. A. P. Fitzgerald, editor 
Nashville Christian Advocate ; Rev. Dr. B. W. McDonald, 
Lebanon, Tenn. ; Rev. Dr. J. O. Stedman, Memphis, Tenn. ; 
Colonel J. W. SIqss, Birmingham, Ala. ; Rev. Dr. C. H. Fowler, 
editor Christian Advocate, 805 Broadway, New York; Rev. Dr. 
J. T. Tichnour, Auburn, Ala. ; Laurence S. Marye, Esq., Chat- 
tanooga, Tenn. ; Rev. J. M. M. Caldwell, Rome, Ga. ; Rev. Dr. 
Oswald Dykes, London, England ; Rev. Dr. S. Robinson, Louis- 
ville, Ky. : Rev. Dr. S. J. Niccols, St. Louis, Mo. ; Rev. Dr. A. A. 
Lipscomb, Professor Vanderbilt University, Nashville, Tenn. ; 
Rev. Dr. S. R. Houston, Second Creek, W. Ya. ; General George 
D. Johnston, Tuscaloosa, Ala. ; Rev. Dr. A. B. Yan Zandt, New 
Brunswick, N. J. ; Rev. Dr. F. Jacobs, Lawrence Court-House, 
S. C. ; Rev. Dr. J. P. Boyce, Louisville, Ky. ; Rev. J. B. Adger, 
Pendleton, S. C. ; Rev. G. E. Eagleton, Mount Holly, Ark. ; 



MORROW'S THESAURUS. 



vii 



Kev. Dr. Gr. H. W. Petrie, Montgomery, Ala. ; Rev. 1ST. R. 
Morgan, Eutaw, Ala. ; Rev. Dr. J. B. Shearer, Clarksville, 
Tenn. ; Rev. J. N. Carothers, Houston, Miss. ; Rev. R. O. B. 
Morrow, Brandon, Miss. ; Rev. Dr. T. R. Welch, Little Rock, 
Ark. ; Rev. Dr. J. N. Waddell, Memphis, Tenn. ; Hon. W. H. 
Chambers, Oswichee, Ala. ; Rev. Dr. John Leyburn, Baltimore, 
Md. ; Dr. John Little, Sr., Tuscaloosa, Ala. ; Joseph Cook, Bos- 
ton, Mass. ; W. H. Garret, Esq., 218 Chestnut Street, St. Louis, 
Mo. ; Cyrus H. McCormick, Esq., Chicago, 111. ; Rev. Dr. C. F. 
Deems, New York; Rev. M. L. Frierson, Florence, Ala.; Rev. 
Hector McLean, Melrose, N. C. ; Rev. Dr. W. A. Harrison, 
Knoxville, Tenn. ; Rev. Dr. F. A. Ross, Huntsville, Ala. ; 
Rev. Dr. T. D. Witherspoon, Petersburg, Va. ; Rev. Dr. James 
Eells, Oakland, Cal. ; Rev. Dr. R. T. Patterson, Philadelphia ; 
Rev. Dr. D. X. Junkin, New Castle, Pa. ; Rev. Dr. J. Edwards, 
Danville, Ky. ; Rev. Dr. John Hall, New York ; Presbyterian 
Weekly, Baltimore, Md. ; Cumberland Presbyterian, Nashville, 
Tenn.; The Observer (Cumberland), St. Louis, Mo.; Christian 
Advocate, Richmond, Ya. ; Central Methodist, Catlettsburg, Ky. ; 
Herald and Presbyter, Cincinnati, Ohio ; Religious Herald, Rich- 
mond, Ya. ; Central Baptist, Memphis, Tenn. ; Rev. Dr. W. C. 
Roberts, Elizabeth, N. J. ; Rev. Dr. A. A. Hodge, Princeton, 
N. J., and Rev. Charles H. Spurgeon, London. 

These gentlemen, and all others having subscriptions for Mor- 
row's " Thesaurus," will send them to the author and proprietor, 
Rev. Thomas Morrow, Hartsell, Morgan County, Ala., who, as 
soon as a sufficient number of subscribers shall have been ob- 
tained and reported to him, will have the book published imme- 
diately. 



A BLOW AT THE ROOT 

OF 

MODERN INFIDELITY AND SCEPTICISM; 

OR, 

HUXLEYISM ANALYZED AND CRITICISED. 



BY 

THOMAS MORROW, V.D.M. 

HARTSELL, MORGAN COUNTY, ALA. 



PRINTED BY J. B. LIPPINCOTT & CO., PHILADELPHIA. 

1878. 



ADDRESS THE AUTHOR. 



A BLOW AT THE EOOT 

OF 

MODERN INFIDELITY AND SCEPTICISM; 

OR, 

HUXLEYISM ANALYZED AND CRITICISED. 



Rev. M. L. Frierson, Professor in the State Normal School, Florence, 
Ala., says : 

"Having carefully examined the MS. of *A Blow at the Root of 
Modern Infidelity and Scepticism ; or, Huxleyism Analyzed and Criti- 
cised/ I very cheerfully express my most hearty approval of the same. 
Attacking scientific scepticism as it does on the discrepancies of its 
advocates, it is invaluable to the scholar, theologian, and practical Chris- 
tian, as affording a ready and easy refutation of their contradictions of, 
and objections to, the Bible. It is calculated to supply a felt want of the 
Christian world of the present day, and I sincerely hope soon to see it 
before the public/' And the Presbytery of North Alabama, after giving 
it their unanimous approval, " earnestly recommend it to the confidence 
and liberal patronage of the friends of the Bible." 



PRICES FOR THIS PAMPHLET. 

25 cents each for less than 5 copies; 20 cents each for more than 5 
and less than 50 copies; 18 cents each for more than 50 and less than 
100 copies; 15 cents each for 100 copies or more. 

Address the author and proprietor, 

REV. THOMAS MORROW, Hartsett, Morgan County, Ala. 



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